GIFT  or 

Gladys   Isaacson 


I'iH 


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THE 

FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

AND  OTHER  SERMONS 


BY 

GEORGE  ADAM  SMITH,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

rORMBRLV  MINISTER  OF  QUEBN's  CROSS  FRSB  CHURCH,  ABBRPBBW 

rROFBSSOR   OF   OLD   TBSTAMBNT    LANGUAGE  AUD  LXTBRATURB 

VMITBD  FREE  CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND  GLASGOW  COLLEGE 


HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.   DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  ipo4,  Sy 

A.  C.  Armstrong  &  Son 

Publishedy  Nov.,  igo4 

Second  printing,  Marsh,  i^$ 

Third  printing,  October,  1905 


.GIPI  OP 
GLADYS     /SAACSON 


DEDICATION 

These  Sermons,  first  preached  from  the  pulpit 
of  Queen's  Cross  Free  Church,  Aberdeen,  I 
dedicate  to  miy  old  comrades  in  her  fellowship 
and  ministry,  in  remembrance  of  our  com<- 
munion  in  the  service  of  God,  and  with 
lasting  affection  and  gratitude. 


Ni27827 


CONTENTS 

I 

The  Forgiybness  of  Sins,     -        -        -  i 

The  forgiveness  of  oar  sins  according  to  the 
riches  of  His  grace.  Ephbsians  i.  7. 

n 

The  Word  of  God,     -         -        -        -        26 

The  Fear  of  the  Lord  is  clean,  enduring  for 
ever.  Psalm  xix.  9. 

Ill 
Temptation,  -         -         -         -         -        51 

Then  was  jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  tht 
wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil. 

Matthbw  iv.  I. 


viii  CONTENTS 


PAOI 


IV 

Our  Lord's  Example  in  Prayer,  -        69 

And  it  came  to  pass,  as  He  was  praying  in  a 
certain  place,  that,  when  He  ceased,  one  of 
His  disciples  said  unto  Him,  Lord,  teach  us 
to  pray,  even  as  John  also  taught  his  disciples. 

LuKS  xi.  I. 

V 

While  ye  have  the  Light,  -         -        89 

Man  goeth  forth  unto  his  work  and  to  his 
labour  until  the  evening.  Psalm  civ.  23. 

While  ye  have  the  Light,  believe  in  the  Light, 
that  ye  may  become  the  children  of  Light. 

John  xii.  36. 

VI 
The  Two  Wills,         -         -        -        -      105 

When  He  was  accused  by  the  chief  priests 
and  elders,  He  answered  nothing.  Then  saith 
Pilate  unto  Him,  Hearest  thoa  not  how 
many  things  they  witness  against  thee  }  And 
He  gave  him  no  answer,  not  even  to  one 
word  :  insomuch  that  the  governor  marvelled 
greatly.  ... 

Now  the  chief  priests  and  the  elders  per- 
stiaded  the  multitudes  that  they  should  ask  for 


CONTENTS  ix 

PA6I 

Barabbaa,  and  destroy  Jesus.  But  the  governor 
answered  and  said  unto  them.  Whether  of  the 
twain  will  ye  that  I  release  unto  you  ?  And 
they  said,  Barabbas.  Pilate  saith  unto  them. 
What  then  shall  I  do  unto  Jesus,  which  ii 
allied  Christ?  They  all  say,  Let  him  be 
crucified.  And  he  said,  Why  what  evil  hath 
he  done  ?  But  they  cried  out  exceedingly, 
•aying.  Let  him  be  crucified  ! 

Matthew  xxvii.  12-14  ;  20-23. 

vn 

The  Moral  Meaning  of  Hope,  -         -      I2i 

But  according  to  His  promise,  we  look  for 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness.  Wherefore,  beloved, 
feeing  that  ye  look  for  these  things,  give 
diligence  that  ye  may  be  found  in  peace, 
without  spot  and  blameless  in  His  sight. 

2  Pbtbr  iii.  13,  14. 

VIII 

The  Good  Samaritan,  -        -        -      139 

But  he,  desiring  to  justify  himself,  said  unto 
Jesus,  And  who  is  my  neighbour  ?  Jesus  made 
answer  and  said,  A  certain  man  was  going 
down  fix>m  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  and  he  fell 
among  robbers,  which  both  stripped  him  and 
beat  him,  and  departed,  leaving  him  half-dead. 

LvKB  X.  29  C 


CONTENTS 


PAOI 


IX 
To  Him  that  Overcometh,         •        -      156 

To  him  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  lift^ 
which  is  in  the  Paradise  of  God.  .  . 
He  that  overcometh,  I  will  give  to  him  to  sit 
down  with  me  on  my  throne,  as  I  also  over- 
came and  sat  down  with  my  Father  on  Hit 
throne.  Rkvblation  ii.  7,  ii,  17,  26,  28  ; 
iii.  5,  12,  21. 


EsAU)  -------        174 

Lest  there  be  any  .  .  .  profane  person,  as 
Esau,  who  for  one  mess  of  meat  sold  hit 
own  birthright.  Hebrews  xii.  16. 

XI 

Gideon.     L,         -         -         -         •         -      192 

And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  and  sat 
under  the  terebinth  which  was  in  Ophrah, 
that  pertained  unto  Joash  the  Abiezrite :  and 
his  son  Gideon  was  beating  out  wheat  in  the 
winepress,  to  hide  it  from  the  Midianites. 
And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  unto 
him,  and  said  unto  him.  The  Lord  is  with 
thee,  thou  mighty  man  of  valour.  And 
Gideon  said  unto  him.  Oh  my  lord,  if  the 
Lord  be  with  us,  why  then  is  all  this  befidlca 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGI 

osf  and  where  be  all  Hb  wondrous  worb 
which  our  fathers  told  us  o^  saying.  Did 
not  the  Lord  bring  us  up  from  Egypt  ?  but 
now  the  Lord  hath  cast  us  off,  and  delivered 
Bs  into  the  hand  of  Midian.  And  the  Lord 
looked  upon  him,  and  said.  Go  in  this  thy 
might,  and  thou  shalt  save  Israel  from  the 
hand  of  Midian  :  have  not  I  sent  thee  ? 
And  he  said  unto  him.  Oh  Lord,  where- 
with shall  I  save  Israel  ?  behold,  my  family 
is  the  poorest  in  Manasseh,  and  I  am  the 
least  in  my  Other's  house.  And  the  Lord 
said  unto  him.  Surely  I  will  be  with  thee,  and 
thou  shalt  smite  the  Midianites  as  one  man. 
Judges  vi.  11-16. 


XII 

Gideon.     IL,        -----      206 

And  it  came  to  pass  the  same  night,  that 
the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Arise,  get  thee 
down  against  the  camp  ;  for  I  have  delivered 
it  into  thine  hand.  But  if  thou  fear  to  go 
down,  go  thou  with  Purah  thy  servant 
down  to  the  camp  :  and  thou  shalt  hear 
what  they  say ;  and  afterward  shall  thine 
hands  be  strengthened  to  go  down  against 
the  camp.  Then  went  he  down  with  Purah 
his  servant  unto  the  outermost  part  of  the 
armed  men  that  were  in  the  camp. 

JvDGis  vii.  9-1 1. 


xu 


CONTENTS 


PAGI 


XIII 

Thb  Song  of  the  Well,     -        -         -      218 

And  thence  to  Be'er ;  this  is  the  Be'er  [or 
Well]  of  which  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses, 
Gather  the  people  together  and  I  will  give 
them  water.     Then  sang  Israel  this  song  : 

Spring  up,  O  well !     Sing  ye  back  to  her  ! 

Well  which  princes  digged. 

Which  nobles  of  the  people  delved, 

With  the  sceptre  and  with  their  staves. 

NuMBBRS  xxi.  16-18. 

XIV 
Sermon  before  Communion.     L,  -         -      238 

He  restoreth  my  soul.  Psalm  xxiii.  3. 

I  am  the  Bread  of  Life.  John  vi.  35. 

XV 

Sermon  before  Communion.     IL,-         -      254 
He  took  bread.  Luu  zxii.  19. 


NOTE. 

The  words  of  the  Texts  of  the  Sermons  and  of  other 
citations  from  Scripture  in  this  volume  are  taken  from  the 
Revised  Version  of  the  English  Bible  (1885),  with  some 
•tight  modi&catioiM, 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

The  forgiveness  of  our  sins  according  to  the  riches  of   His 
grace. — Ephesians  i.  7. 

T  WISH  to  seek  with  you  some  of  the  answers, 
to  be  found  in  the  Scriptures  and  our  own 
experience,  to  the  question:  In  what  does  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  consist?  There  is  another 
question  inseparable  from  this,  and  of  equal 
importance  with  it:  How  is  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  assured  to  us?  To  which  the  answer  is: 
Through  the  perfect  sacrifice  offered  once  for  all 
in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God.  We  shall  carry  this  answer  with  us,  and 
before  we  are  done  we  shall  consider  what  it  does 
to  enhance  the  meaning  and  obligations  of  forgive- 
ness. But  our  main  purpose  is  to  ask  what  that 
meaning  is.    We  do  not  aim  at  a  historical  survey 

A 


2  THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

or  systematic  statement  of  Bible  doctrine  on  the 
subjecf4{,,tt  is  orily;5f(^itie  practical  answers  we  seek 
— I'.cIq  ?Tiot;pr^^id  they  .are  exhaustive — from  the 
Bible'  as'  wtrias'  irobi'bijr'  own  experience  to  one 
of  the  most  urgent  questions  which  that  experience 
presses  upon  us:  In  what  docs  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  consist? 


The  strongest  proofs  of  the  need  of  forgiveness, 
or,  in  other  words,  of  the  reality  of  the  sense  of 
sin,  have  been  found  by  some  observers  in  the 
universality  of  that  sense,  or  at  least  in  the  fact, 
which  the  dramatists  of  all  ages  have  treated  as 
the  most  certain  and  tragic  element  in  human 
experience — the  persistence  and  ineradicableness 
of  a  sense  of  guilt:  the  hopelessness  of  out- 
running conscience,  however  successfully  some 
versatile  men  may  have  appeared  to  do  so,  upon 
their  passions,  or  upon  a  strong  ambition,  or  upon 
the  cleaner  carriage  of  an  intellectual  pursuit,  or  a 
busy  service  of  their  fellows.  Neither  the  most 
powerful  nor  the  most  pure  absorptions,  of  which 
the  heart  is  capable,  are  of  themselves  sufficient  to 
redeem  a  man  from  the  conscience  of  a  selfish,  a 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS  3 

cruel,  or  a  cowardly  deed.  I  need  not  linger  to 
remind  you  of  how  fully  the  Bible  illustrates  and 
enforces  these  conclusions  of  our  experience. 

But  more  convincing  than  this  inevitableness 
of  conscience  by  all  men,  however  hardy  and  reck- 
less, is  the  fact  that  the  sense  of  sin  appears  most 
keen  and  painful  in  the  purest  and  the  truest 
hearts:  that  it  is  the  most  holy  of  our  race,  who 
have  most  acutely  felt  their  guilt  and  need  of 
forgiveness.  Which  of  us  can  remain  unashamed 
in  presence  of  the  shame  of  the  Saints?  With 
that  shame  also  the  Bible  is  red.  The  verses 
which  bum  with  it,  the  Psalms,  which  are  blotted 
with  its  tears  or  broken  by  its  sobs,  are  to-day 
and  for  ever  will  be,  the  confessional  of  humanity. 
Do  not  think  that  it  is  where  the  criminal  or  the 
murderer  breaks  down  in  confession  that  we  will 
most  keenly  find  our  conscience.  It  is  the  saints 
upon  their  knees  who  draw  us  beside  them; 
where  Isaiah  feels  his  lips  unclean  before  the 
Throne;  where  Peter  falls  at  the  feet  of  Christ; 
where  Paul  cries  crushed  and  broken  from  the 
captivity  that  is  upon  him ;  where  John  looks  us  in 
the  face  and  says :  If  any  man  say  that  he  has  no  sin 
he  deceiveth  himself  and  the  truth  is  not  in  him. 


4  THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

But  indeed  we  do  not  require  to  go  beyond 
our  own  experience.  Abstract  and  pale  are  the 
evidences  of  sin  in  other  men  besides  those  with 
which  each  of  us  can  furnish  himself.  If  you  and 
I  are  awake  to-day  and  if  we  are  dealing  honestly 
with  ourselves  there  is  not  one  of  us  who  cannot 
find  in  his  own  memory  and  by  his  own  conscience 
infinitely  more  painful  proofs  of  the  need  of  for- 
*  giveness  than  the  most  reckless  or  the  most  holy 
lives  of  others  can  possibly  present  to  him.  // 
any  man  say  that  he  have  no  sin  he  deceive th 
himself  and  the  truth  is  not  in  him. 

I  know  that  I  am  speaking  to  many  who  are  at 
a  stage  of  life  when  all  this  can  hardly  have  the 
same  force  as  it  will  when  you  are  older.  In  our 
youth  religion  attracts  us  more  by  the  ideals  and 
aspirations  with  which  she  inspires  our  strength, 
than  by  the  remedies  and  reliefs  which  she  offers 
to  our  weakness.  But  as  the  years  go  on  it  is  the 
sense  of  the  need  of  forgiveness  of  which  we 
become  most  aware.  It  is  an  older  man  who  says : 
Remember  not  the  sifts  of  my  youth,  O  Lord,  nor 
my  transgressions:  but  according  to  thy  loving 
kindness  remember  thou  me.  We  have  missed 
opportunities,    we   have   neglected    duties.     What- 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS  5 

ever  good  use  we  have  made  of  some  of  the 
relations  of  life,  there  are  others  which  we  have 
wasted,  or  to  which  through  selfishness  we  have 
been  utterly  blind.  We  have  not  been  fully  loyal 
to  the  hearts  that  loved  and  trusted  us.  We  have 
gone  astray  in  face  of  manifest  warnings  from  on 
high.  We  have  sinned  against  the  light  and  love 
of  God  our  Father.  The  years  do  not  lessen  nor 
wear  thin  this  sense  of  guilt.  Rather  they  bring 
out  all  the  colour  that  is  in  it:  red  and  awful  to 
our  eyes.  Every  additional  one  teaches  us  that  it 
is  the  most  inseparable  element  of  human  experi- 
ence, perhaps  to  be  thrown  off  by  nimble  youth, 
but  certain  to  make  up  on  later  years.  Guilt,  a 
bad  conscience,  remorse — it  is  not  our  theologians 
but  our  poets  and  depictors  of  human  life  who  have 
vied  with  each  other  in  showing  how  these  stick  to 
a  man,  and  how  though  he  carry  nothing  else  out 
of  life  with  him  he  carries  this.  The  sting  of  death 
is  sin,  "It  is  like  a  piece  of  bad  workmanship," 
one  of  our  greater  English  novelists  makes  one  of 
her  characters,  a  carpenter,  say:  "It's  like  a  piece 
of  bad  workmanship,  you  never,  never  see  the  end 
of  it." 

Yet  the  Prophets  made  it  one  of  their  principal 


6  THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

proclamations  that  God  forgave  the  sins  and 
removed  the  guilt  of  the  penitent;  and  Christ 
went  further  and  announced  that  the  removal  of 
the  guilt  of  men  was  His  work  and  the  meaning 
of  His  Life  and  Death.  To  earth  He  came 
expressly  for  this;  and  the  confidence  with  which 
He  promised  forgiveness,  and  with  which  He 
bestowed  it  was  not  due  to  His  feeling  the  sense 
of  sin  less  than  its  victims  do.  Christ,  the  Sinless, 
felt  Sin  far  more  than  we,  whose  hearts  condemn 
us.  He  brought  an  unspeakable  burden  of  truth 
from  Heaven;  but  the  burden  He  found  on  earth 
was  heavier  and  it  broke  His  heart.  In  the 
misery  sin  causes,  in  its  damage  to  our  whole 
nature,  in  the  misunderstanding  of  God  and  the 
estrangement  from  God  which  it  breeds.  He  bore 
our  sins  more  fully  than  the  worst  of  us  or  the  best 
of  us  ever  felt  them.  Yet  He  proclaimed  their 
forgiveness  through  Himself.  And  by  Him 
thousands,  nay  millions,  who  had  felt  the  sense  of 
guilt  as  the  most  real  element  of  their  experience, 
have  come,  through  Him  I  say,  to  be  as  sure 
of  the  greater  reality  of  their  pardon  and  their 
freedom.  They  may  not  have  understood  all  that 
He  did  for  them — for  who  can? — but  for  our  pur- 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS  7 

pose  it  is  enough  that  they  knew  they  were  for- 
given, and  forgiven  for  His  sake. 

II 

In  what  then  does  forgiveness  consist?  Take, 
to  start  with,  a  most  common  reading  of  forgive- 
ness— that  it  is  the  recalling  of  the  just  punishment 
of  our  sins,  the  abolition  by  Almighty  God  of 
their  consequences.  Is  that  true?  Is  it  half  the 
truth  ?  Is  it  not  an  answer  in  which  there  lies,  to 
say  the  least,  a  deal  of  vagueness  and  moral  con- 
fusion? Barabbas  might  be  content  with  it.  It 
does  not  express  the  experience  of  the  saints  of  the 
Bible,  it  is  not  true  to  our  own  highest  convictions. 
In  the  worst  and  most  servile  natures  the  sense  of 
sin  means  above  all  a  dread  of  punishment  in  its 
most  material  form  whether  here  or  hereafter;  and 
by  such  natures  forgiveness  will  therefore  be  sought 
and  expected  as  the  remission  of  the  material 
consequences  of  a  man's  misdeeds.  But  penitence 
of  this  kind  is  surely  little  more  than  the  sorrow  of 
the  world  which  worketh  death.  In  the  best  and 
most  healthy  characters  the  sense  of  sin  means 
something  very  different:  not  that  I  am  going  to 
be  punished  and  must  bear  the  physical  or  social 


8  THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

consequences  of  what  I  have  done;  but  that  I  did 
what  I  ought  not  to  have  done;  that  I  was  selfish, 
cowardly,  unready,  untrue,  and  cruel;  that  I  failed 
at  the  test  and  that  the  failure  was  my  own  fault; 
that  it  has  set  me  at  a  distance  from  God;  that  it 
has  cost  me  in  my  character  the  loss  of  liberty  and 
spontaneousness ;  that  it  has  produced  in  me  a 
cowardly  mistrust  of  myself  in  all  moral  effort; 
that  it  has  given  me  a  slavish  fear  of  God  in  place 
of  the  natural  love  and  trust  which  His  children 
enjoy.  A  man  who  has  such  a  conscience  of  his 
sins  will  not,  in  seeking  forgiveness,  be  chiefly  con- 
cerned about  their  physical  or  social  consequences. 
The  fear  of  punishment  will  be  absorbed  in,  or  at 
least  be  subordinate  to,  the  nobler  anxiety  as  to 
how  the  ethical  and  religious  disturbance  produced 
in  his  nature  by  sin  may  be  removed.  For  him 
forgiveness  will  mean  reconciliation  with  God  His 
Father;  the  dissipation  of  the  evil  conscience 
which  rises  in  him  at  the  presence  of  God;  and 
the  overcoming  of  that  horrible  distrust  of  himself 
before  temptation  and  before  duty  which  paralyses 
his  will  and  renders  him  an  easy  prey  to  the  powers 
of  evil.  At  the  same  time,  looking  to  God  as  he 
docs,  as  God  Almighty,  of  infinite  grace  and  with 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS  9 

command  of  nature  and  of  history  as  well  as  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  man,  he  will  not  cease  to  pray  for 
the  reduction  of  even  the  material  consequences  of 
his  guilt.  But  he  will  not  count  the  latter  as  the 
essence  or  even  as  the  necessary  result  of  his  for- 
giveness. If  he  does  he  will  be  entertaining  a 
conception  of  forgiveness  which  will  only  lead  him 
away  from,  and  blind  his  heart  to,  those  moral 
results,  by  which  alone  God's  pardon  of  us  could 
be  justified  or  were  worth  the  taking  by  our- 
selves. 

These  truths,  which  are  obvious  to  the  higher 
instincts  of  our  own  nature,  are  plainly  set 
before  us  in  the  Bible.  Not  without  struggle  and 
much  passion;  for  it  costs  God's  people,  even  under 
the  special  guidance  of  His  Spirit  which  they 
enjoyed,  no  little  argument,  and  even  scepticism  to 
reach  them.  The  Revelation,  of  which  the  Bible  is 
the  record,  encountered  man  upon  every  moral 
level  upon  which  it  has  been  given  to  the  human 
heart  to  suffer  and  aspire.  And  therefore  the 
account  which  the  Old  Testament  contains  of  how 
men  looked  for  and  sought  the  Divine  Pardon  is 
very  various.  Yet  it  is  one  which  steadily  grows 
with    Israel's     increasing    experience    of     God's 


lo         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

manifestation  of  Himself  and  of  His  Pro- 
vidence in  nature  and  history;  throwing  off 
by  degrees  every  element  of  servile  error  and 
fear,  till  at  last  it  becomes  a  noble  and  disin- 
terested peace,  in  which  a  man  learns  to  accept 
the  spiritual  elements  of  forgiveness  for  their 
own  sake — the  assurance  of  God's  restored  trust  in 
him,  the  restoration  of  His  communion,  and  the 
welcome  burden  of  His  will — and  reckons  as 
subordinate  and  incidental  to  these,  such  reliefs, 
as  He  may  be  pleased  to  send,  of  the  outward 
afflictions  which  the  sins  have  wrought. 

At  first — it  was  a  necessary  stage  in  their  Divine 
education — the  Hebrews  appear  to  have  had  a  very 
simple  idea  of  the  relations  of  sin,  suffering,  and 
forgiveness.  In  their  language  the  Lord  brought 
down  upon  a  man's  head  his  own  wickedness  ^ ; 
visited  him  with  physical  and  other  evils,  and 
when  He  forgave  him  these  were  removed. 
The  nation  as  a  whole  sinned,  and  in  consequence 
suffered  drought  and  famine,  and  when  these  did 
not  avail  to  produce  penitence  in  them,  oppression, 
slaughter,  and  even  exile  at  the  hands  of  heathen 
powers    regarded    as    the    instruments    of    God's 

»Ju.  ix.  5,  7. 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         ii 

righteous  anger  against  them.  And  His  forgive- 
ness was  assured  to  their  penitence  when  He 
deHvered  them  from  their  enemies  and  restored 
to  them  their  poHtical  freedom  and  the 
opportunity  of  worshipping  Him  in  their  own 
land.  In  all  this  there  was  a  profound 
truth:  the  conviction,  namely,  that  as  God 
is  One,  so  His  world  is  one;  that  morality 
to  use  a  modern  phrase  is  "of  the  natural  order  of 
things";  and  that  the  Divine  Providence  sways 
nature  and  history  for  the  high  ends  of  righteous- 
ness and  grace. 

Yet,  as  we  can  easily  see,  the  effect  of  such 
simple  views  upon  such  an  experience,  was  to  create 
and  foster  the  belief  that  physical  and  political 
disaster,  whether  it  fell  on  the  nation  or  on  the 
individual,  always  implied  the  sinfulness  of  its 
victims,  and  that  conversely  prosperity  always 
proved  their  righteousness.  How  strong  and  per- 
vasive a  dogma  this  became  in  Israel  may  be 
perceived  not  only  from  the  quantity  of  the  Old 
Testament  prophecy  directed  against  it,  but  from 
the  bitter  struggle  and  deep  passion  which  it  cost 
the  prophets  and  psalmists  to  reach  an  opposite 
conviction.    Both  the  nation  as  a  whole  and  certain 


12         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

great  souls  in  their  private  experience  *  found  them- 
selves in  adverse  circumstances  which  their  con- 
sciences refused  to  acknowledge  as  due  to  their 
sins.  Both  beheld  their  cruel  and  unjust  foes 
flourishing  in  prosperity  and  refused  to  believe  in 
the  righteousness  of  the  fact.  In  these  experiences 
both  encountered  at  first  a  great  shock  to  faith  in 
God.  And  it  was  this  shock  and  the  scepticism  it 
induced,  which  gradually  dissolved  the  dogma,  that 
suffering  and  sin,  righteousness  and  prosperity  were 
identical;  and  when  the  dogma  was  dissolved  room 
came  for  a  higher  and  more  spiritual  conception  of 
forgiveness  than  had  formerly  prevailed.  The 
chastised  nation  or  individual,  protesting  their 
innocence,  and  pressing  with  passion  through  the 
mystery  of  suffering,  which  seemed  to  hide  God 
from  them,  and  to  place  His  decrees  in  contradiction 
to  their  consciences,  found  Him  at  last  not  by 
breaking  beyond  the  suffering  into  health  and 
political  freedom,  but  while  accepting  the  suffering 
itself;  and  found  Him  there  more  real,  more  near, 
more  full  of  grace  and  help,  than  they  had  ever 
known  in  the  brightest  days  of  their  prosperity. 

» Such  a  Psalmist  as  the  author  of  Psahn  Ixziii.  ;   Jeremiah 
and  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job. 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         13 

You  can  see  how  such  experiences  gave  to  these 
souls  a  new  and  a  liberated  idea  of  forgiveness. 
They  could  no  longer  identify  it  with  the  removal 
of  physical  or  political  sufferings,  but  in  spite  of 
the  continuance  of  these  they  were  assured  of  it  by 
spiritual  convictions,  which  they  could  cherish  in  all 
independence  of  their  physical  or  political  fortunes. 
Forgiveness  meant  a  new  relation  to  God:  the 
experience  of  His  communion  and  of  His  insepar- 
ableness  from  them;  of  His  love,  and  His  belief 
and  trust  in  them.  Of  course,  God  being  what  He 
was,  with  power  as  omnipotent  over  their  physical 
and  political  fortunes  as  over  the  life  of  their  spirit, 
they  did  not  give  up  hoping  also  for  their  relief 
from  pain  and  their  visible  vindication  before  the 
eyes  of  the  world.  They  prayed  that  He  would 
make  perfect  that  which  concerned  them.  And 
even  within  this  life  He  often  did  so.  But  so 
far  from  imagining  that  forgiveness  was  coincident 
with  the  removal  of  the  sufferings  which  their  sins 
had  brought  upon  them,  they  found  that  it  gave 
them  new  strength  and  willingness  to  bear  these,  so 
long  as  it  should  please  God  to  continue  to  afflict 
them.  They  accepted  their  pain;  the  power  to  do 
so  was  one  of  the  results  of   forgiveness.     Yet 


14         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

after  this  life  was  over  they  looked  for  one  which 
shotild  be  full  of  blessedness  and  glory.  Never- 
theless, in  spite  of  every  suffering  and  every  doubt 
it  breeds,  /  am  with  Thee:  Thou  hast  holden  my 
right  hand.  Thou  shalt  guide  me  zvith  Thy 
counsel  and  afterward  receive  me  to  glory. 

In  the  New  Testament  we  find  the  full  results 
of  this  age-long  struggle  to  light  and  peace.  They 
are  so  simple  that  to  describe  them  requires  few 
words.  Only  we  must  first  notice  that  our  Lord 
found  it  necessary  again  to  contradict  the  dogma 
(for  it  still  lingered)  that  all  suffering  meant  guilt.^ 
And  again  the  inference  was  clear  that  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins  did  not  essentially  consist  in  the 
removal  of  suffering.  Although,  in  the  divine 
power  bestowed  on  Him,  He  sometimes  healed 
the  sinner  when  He  forgave  him,  the  forgiveness 
was  granted  before  the  healing.  In  His  picture  of 
the  penitent  prodigal,  although  the  latter  is  received 
as  a  son  as  he  was  at  the  beginning  and  clothed  with 
the  robe  and  the  ring,  yet  himself  had  been  satisfied, 
were  it  his  father's  will,  to  be  taken  back  only  as  a 
hired  servant.  For  his  pure  penitence  rightly  dis- 
cerned that  forgiveness  was  something  essentially 

» John  ix.  3. 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS  15 

different  from  the  full  removal  of  the  consequences 
of  his  sin.  It  is  not  otherwise  with  the  Apostles, 
who  in  speaking  of  God's  pardon  emphasise  the 
ethical  and  religious  results.  Only,  and  still  more 
brightly  and  confidently  than  with  the  prophets, 
the  New  Testament  assures  those  who  are  forgiven 
of  their  full  blessedness  and  freedom  in  the  glory 
of  their  Father  hereafter.  They  shall  hunger  no 
more,  neither  thirst  any  more  .  .  .  and  God  shall 
wipe  away  every  tear  from  their  eyes. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  then  is  that  we  cannot  say, 
God  never  remits  to  a  forgiven  man  the  conse- 
quences of  his  sins.  He  is  the  God  and  Father  of 
our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  who  in  His 
Name  healed  the  paralytic  at  the  same  time  that 
He  said:  Son,  thy  sins  he  forgiven  thee!  He  is 
the  omnipotent  Creator  who  in  His  physical  world 
has  provided  such  wonderful  means  of  healing, 
recuperation,  and  repair.  But  what  we  can  affirm, 
both  from  Scripture  and  experience,  is  that  such  a 
remission  does  not  always  nor  even  generally  occur 
when  forgiveness  itself  has  become  sure.  To  go 
back  for  a  moment  to  Scripture  and  to  a  most  clear 
example  there,  we  read  of  David  who  by  God's 
grace  found  pardon,   if  ever  man  did,   and  who 


i6         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

nevertheless  in  his  kingdom,  in  his  family  and  in 
his  own  person  bore  to  the  day  of  his  death  the 
punishment  of  the  great  crime  of  which  he  so 
nobly  repented.  And  we  all— K)r  at  least  those  of 
us  who  are  past  our  youth — ^have  known  men  and 
women  who  have  as  nobly  repented  of  their  sins 
as  David,  and  who  nevertheless  in  the  unremitting 
pains  of  a  long  life  have  had  to  pay  the  heavy 
debts  they  incurred  by  the  folly  and  recklessness 
of  their  youth.  Did  not  Israel  of  old,  although 
forgiven,  receive  of  the  Lord's  hand  double  for  all 
her  sins? 

In  all  which  there  is  at  once  a  great  consolation 
and  a  terrible  warning.  A  great  consolation — for 
to  those  who  are  compassed  with  infirmities  of  their 
own  making,  irremovable  on  this  side  the  grave, 
there  comes  the  message  that  within  these  and  in 
spite  of  these,  the  peace  of  God  may  be  found ; 
that  they  may  bear  them  not  as  convicts  or  guilty 
slaves,  but  as  sons,  and  find  in  them  not  pimish- 
ment  but  purification  and  the  means  of  holding 
closer  to  the  God  of  grace,  than  ever  they  had  been 
able  to  do  without  them.  And  a  terrible  warning 
— Brothers,  he  not  deceived,  God  is  not  mocked. 
Whatsoever  a  man   soweth,   that  shall  he  reap. 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         17 

Sin,  and  you  may  be  forgiven,  but  you  shall  never 

so  long  as  life  lasts  be  able  to  count  on  freedom 

from   the   consequences.      Even   v^rithin   the  moral 

sphere  these  may  persist.     Sin,  and  though  God's 

love  sweep  away  the  hopelessness  of   the  future, 

and  God's  Spirit  put  in  you  a  new  will  and  new 

courage,  it  shall  be  with  heavier  weights  that  you 

run  your  race,  with  increased  temptations  that  you 

must  battle  up  to  the  end  of  the  day — temptations 

besides  that  you  shall  never  encounter  without  the 

shame  and  weakness  of  having  been  yourself  their 

guilty  cause. 

Ill 

In  what  then  does  the  forgiveness  of  sin  essen- 
tially consist?  In  the  infinite  riches  of  God's  grace 
by  Christ  Jesus,  it  consists  in  many  spiritual  results, 
of  which  I  have  already,  from  Scripture  and  our 
experience,  quoted  several.  But  among  these 
there  is  one  to  which  we  may  devote  the  rest  of 
this  sermon  for  three  reasons,  because  it  is  ethically 
the  most  inspiring,  because  it  is  that  on  which 
Scripture  appears  to  lay  most  stress,  and  because, 
at  the  same  time,  it  is  one  so  often  overlooked  by 
ourselves. 

B 


1 8         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

From  at  least  the  time  of  the  prophets  up  to  the 
end  of  the  New  Testament  the  element  in  Forgive- 
ness which  the  Bible  most  frequently  emphasises  is 
God's  new  trust  in  the  soul  He  has  pardoned:  the 
faith  that  despite  our  frailty,  our  unworthiness,  our 
guilt;  despite  the  mistrust  and  despair  which  the 
memory  of  our  sin  induces,  God  still  trusts  us,  God 
believes  us  capable  of  doing  better,  God  confides 
to  us  the  interests  and  responsibilities  of  His  work 
on  earth.  That  according  to  the  Bible  is  the 
ethical  meaning  of  forgiveness — God's  belief  in  us, 
God's  hope  for  us,  God's  will  to  work  with  us, 
God's  trust  to  us  of  services  and  posts  in  His 
kingdom. 

So  long  ago  Isaiah  found  it:  when  immediately 
after  his  guilt  had  been  removed  by  a  sacrament  of 
fire,  he  felt  himself  receive — not,  mark  you,  to 
begin  with  a  definite  commission  to  God's  people, 
but  the  opportunity,  upon  his  own  will  and 
motive,  to  give  himself  to  the  message  and  work 
which  God  proclaimed  as  open.  He  had  called 
himself  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  dwelling  in  the 
midst  of  an  unclean  people.  But  when  his 
iniquity  was  taken  away  and  his  sin  purged;  and 
he  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  saying  Whom  shall 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         19 

/  send  and  who  mill  go  for  us? — he  himself  in  the 
great  consciousness  of  freedom  which  forgiveness 
brought,  and  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  God's 
restored  trust  in  him,  cried  out:  Here  am  I,  send 
me!    And  at  once  he  received  his  commission. 

So  also  long  ago  a  Psalmist  felt  it — the  Psalmist 
who,  more  than  any  other,  declares  to  us  the  purely 
ethical  motives  that  drive  men  to  pray  for  Pardon. 
Forgiveness  came  to  him,  too,  as  the  instinct  of  a 
great  commission  from  God,  who  trusted  him. 

Deliver  me  from  blood  guiltiness,  0  God  of  my 
salvation,  And  my  tongue  shall  sing  aloud  of  thy 
righteousness.  O  Lord,  open  thou  my  lips,  "And 
my  mouth  shall  show  forth  thy  praise.  I  will  teach 
transgressors  thy  ways,  'And  sinners  shall  he  con- 
verted  unto  thee} 

So  long  ago  another  prophet  saw  it  when  he 
made  God's  trust  of  men  the  starting  point  of  all 
salvation  and  providence.  For  He  said:  'Surely 
they  are  my  people:  children  who  cannot  lie  or 
prove  false.  They  did  lie,  they  did  fail:  all  the 
time  they  proved  rebels  to  His  will  and  traitors  to 
the  trust  that  He  reposed  in  them.  But  He  for- 
gave them  by  trusting  them  again.     He  said  they 

1  Psalm  li.  13,  14. 


20         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

are  children  that  will  not  lie:  so  He  became 
their  saviour.  In  all  their  affliction  He  was 
oMicted,  and  the  Angel  of  His  Presence  sa/ved 
them.  In  His  love  and  in  His  pity  He  redeemed 
them;  and  He  hare  them  and  carried  them  all  the 
days  of  old}  The  whole  glorious  history  of  their 
salvation  and  their  long  sustenance  started  from 
their  God's  gracious  trust  in  their  unworthy  and 
tainted  souls. 

In  the  New  Testament  it  is  not  otherwise.  Our 
Lord's  announcements  of  pardon  are  sometimes 
followed  by  the  words:  Go  and  sin  no  more. 
They  are  in  the  imperative  mood,  but  it  is  the 
fashion  of  the  grammar  of  the  day.  What  they 
mean  is — Thou  wilt  sin  no  more:  I  have  con- 
fidence in  thee!  When  Peter  fell  by  denying  His 
Lord  at  the  critical  hour,  the  assurance  of  forgive- 
ness came  to  his  heartfelt  penitence  in  the  gift  of 
a  new  commission  in  His  Lord's  service.  Simon, 
son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  me?  He  saith  unto  him. 
Yea,  Lord,  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.  Jesus 
saith  unto  him:  Feed  my  lambs,  and  again  Tend 
my  sheep,  and  again  Feed  my  sheep. 

Such,    then,    is    the    Biblical    doctrine    of    for- 

» Isaiah  Ixiii.  8,9. 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         21 

givencss.  Amid  the  many  blessings  in  which 
through  the  infinite  riches  of  His  mercy  in  Christ, 
it  consists,  this  stands  out,  the  most  wonderful 
and  inspiring  essential  of  all:  that  God  Himself 
should  trust  us  when  we  have  lost  all  trust  of 
ourselves:  should  believe  us  capable  of  standing 
when  we  have  fallen,  of  overcoming  where  we  have 
only  known  defeat;  and  of  again  doing  the  work, 
in  which  we  have  been  so  lax  and  unfaithful. 

For  it  is  just  in  all  this  that  the  tremendous 
moral  possibilities  of  forgiveness  consist.  Let  a 
man  merely  off  the  consequences  of  his  sin  and  by 
that  alone  you  do  not  give  him  much  more  than 
room  and  time  to  grow  better:  though  the  good- 
ness  of  God  also  leadeth  to  repentance,  and  if  men's 
hearts  were  only  more  open  to  the  respites  and 
reliefs  of  His  ordinary  Providence,  they  would 
find  in  them  all  the  grace,  which  they  are  too  apt 
to  associate  only  with  the  crises  of  worship  and 
religious  feeling.  Tell  a  man  in  addition  that  God 
so  loved  him  that  He  gave  His  Son  to  die  for  him, 
and  when  the  man  believes  it,  though  his  heart  was 
dry  and  obdurate,  you  shall  indeed  have  wakened 
all  over  his  experience — as  I  dare  say  nothing 
else  ever  did  wake  in  human  nature — the  springs  of 


22         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

wonder,  gratitude  and  hope.  But  you  cannot 
make  him  feel  the  depths  of  that  love,  you  cannot 
carry  his  gratitude  or  his  hope  to  their  fullest  pitch, 
you  cannot  add  to  his  affections  a  new  conscience  or 
fortify  them  past  every  shock,  till  you  tell  him  that 
God's  love  for  him  includes  God's  trust  in  his 
loyalty,  in  his  power  to  make  a  new  start,  to  stand 
firm,  and,  though  he  should  be  the  most  fallen  and 
stunted  of  men,  in  his  power  to  grow  at  last  to  the 
full  stature  of  his  manhood.  Without  this  trust 
of  God  forgiveness  is  only  indulgence  and  the 
experience  of  it  becomes  a  mere  escape.  But  with 
the  sense  of  being  trusted  forgiveness  becomes  a 
conscience,  and  puts  into  a  man  a  new  sense  of 
honour  to  do  his  best  and  his  bravest  for  the  God 
who  believes  in  him. 

The  fear  o'  hell's  the  hangman's  whip 

To  hand  the  wretch  in  order; 
But  where  ye  feel  your  honour  grip, 

Let  that  ay  be  your  border ! 

And  it  is  this  sense  of  honour,  which  forgiveness, 
when  it  is  felt  as  God's  great  trust  of  him,  plants 
in  a  man  deeper  and  stronger  than  any  other  motive 
with  which  religion  can  ever  endow  him. 

Look  you,  there  is  no  other  view  of  forgiveness 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         23 

so  lasting  or  so  ethical  as  this.  So  ethical :  for  this 
makes  it  no  mere  absolution,  no  bare  decree  of 
the  authority  of  God — whether  direct  by  the  Spirit, 
or  mediated  by  His  priests  upon  earth;  no  mere 
decree  of  the  authority  of  God,  but  the  constant 
influence  of  His  grace  and  His  will  upon  our 
hearts.    In  giving  forgiveness  God  gives  Himself. 

Nor  is  there  any  other  view  of  forgiveness  so 
enduring  or  so  bound  to  grow.  For  whereas  the 
effect  of  forgiveness,  as  so  often  vulgarly  inter- 
preted among  us,  refers  only  to  the  past,  and  a 
man's  sense  of  it  is  confined  to  a  single  moment  or 
crisis  of  experience,  however  glorious  that  be;  this 
other  sense  of  forgiveness  as  God's  gracious  trust 
of  us,  though  cherished  at  first  with  a  faltering 
faith  which  often  shrinks  from  the  wonder  of  it 
and  can  scarcely  believe  in  its  reality — this  sense  of 
forgiveness,  as  God's  trust  of  us,  grows  with  the 
growth  of  the  common  days,  finds  its  proof  in  each 
new  morning's  gift  of  life,  and  its  illustrations  in 
every  fresh  opportunity,  however  commonplace, 
and  every  additional  task  or  trial,  however  dull  or 
painful.  I  would  not  say  one  word  against  that 
preaching,  which  claims  our  hearts  for  the  grace  of 
God  in  a  single  and  perfect  hour  of  appreciation, 


24         THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS 

for  by  such  sudden  conversions  the  lives  of  many 
have  immediately  been  changed  and  shall  be  to  the 
end  of  time;  but  I  do  know  that  in  the  sense  of 
forgiveness,  which  I  have  put  before  you,  you  will 
expand  the  sensations  of  an  hour  to  the  experience 
of  a  lifetime  and  make  God's  forgiveness  of  you 
as  wide  and  as  constant  as  His  common  Providence. 

IV 

I  said  at  the  outset  that  we  would  confine  our- 
selves to  the  question:  In  what  does  the  Forgive- 
ness of  Sins  consist?  and  would  not  take  up  the 
other  equally  important  one,  How  is  the  Forgive- 
ness of  Sin  procured  and  assured  to  us?  But  as 
Christians  we  can  never  forget  the  answer  to  this 
other,  for  it  is  the  central  fact  of  our  religion : 
through  the  love  of  God,  who  gave  His  own  Son  to 
die  for  us  on  the  Cross.  And  I  now  conclude,  with 
the  bearing  of  this  fact  on  a  further  application  of 
the  truth  we  have  been  studying  together. 

As  it  was  Christ  who  brought  God's  pardon  to 
us,  let  us  remember  that  God's  great  trust,  so  mani- 
fest in  it,  is  continued  to  us  so  far  as  we  hold  to 
Christ  and  abide  in  Him.  Apart  from  the  grace, 
that  is  so  richly  every  man's  in  Christ,  God  cannot 


THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS         25 

trust  us  nor  could  we  presume  on  the  assurance  of 
our  forgiveness  nor  prove  ourselves  worthy  of  it. 
Therefore,  in  this  most  liberating  of  all  ethical 
experiences  do  not  let  a  man  ever  feel  himself 
independent.  But  as  day  by  day  the  goodness  of 
God  comes  upon  him;  as  he  wakens  every  morn- 
ing into  the  wonder  of  God's  patience  with  his 
unworthy  soul;  as  the  great  occasions  of  life  come 
upon  him,  work,  influence,  friendship,  love;  as 
knowledge,  and  progress  and  a  stable  character 
become  sure  to  him — ^let  him  remember  that  these 
are  not  given  to  him  for  his  own  sake,  but  for 
Christ's.  Let  him  say  to  himself:  I  am  trusted 
with  them  all  by  God,  and  assured  of  them  all, 
only  in  so  far  as  I  live  in  Christ  and  by  the  grace 
which  He  bestows. 


II 

THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

The  Pear  of  the  Lord  is  clean,  enduring  for  ever. — Psalm  xix.  9. 

^TT^HESE  are  bold  words  to  apply  to  Fear  of 
■*"  all  things  in  the  world.  For  among  the 
affections  of  the  human  mind  none  has  engendered, 
whether  within  or  without  religion,  tempers  more 
base;  nor  is  there  any  emotion  less  firm  or  more 
quickly  thrown  off  by  growing  men. 

We  need  not  linger  on  the  fear  of  things  that 
are  earthly :  fear  of  men,  or  of  pain,  or  of  poverty, 
or  of  death.  There  is  no  falsehood  or  servility,  of 
which  the  human  heart  has  not  been  guilty  beneath 
the  influence  of  such  anxieties.  Where  they  affect 
the  mind  no  virtue  seems  secure.  They  have  even 
the  black  magic  to  change  the  heart  of  a  virtue  into 
its  extreme  opposite:  corrupting,  for  instance,  the 
love  of  liberty  for  oneself  into  a  merciless  tyranny 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  27 

against  others,  and  dissolving  courage  into  a 
panic  brutality.  Witness  the  French  Reign  of- 
Terror. 

The  case  is  not  different  when  the  Fear  is  that  of 
some  god  or  supernatural  influence.  The  rites  and 
tempers  of  a  religion  have  generally  been  unclean 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  degree  of  terror  for  the 
deity  which  the  religion  inspired.  Superstition  is 
nothing  but  the  dominance  of  an  ignorant  fear  over 
reason  and  love;  and  superstition,  as  we  know 
even  within  Christianity,  has  begotten  every  form 
of  uncleanness  and  cruelty.  Nor  is  there  any 
religious  emotion  to  which  at  first  sight  the  epithet 
enduring  is  less  applicable.  Though  the  beliefs, 
that  God  is  capricious  and  arbitrary  in  His  doings, 
or  that  He  is  jealous  of  the  ambition  and  success 
of  His  creatures,  have  lingered,  often  under  curious 
disguises,  to  the  present  day;  they  and  the  false 
fear  they  bred  were  among  the  earliest  to  be  defied 
by  the  conscience  and  the  intellect  of  men.  And 
the  cause  of  decay  in  many  historical  religions  was 
just  this:  that  they  sought  to  rule  their  votaries 
by  fear  alone,  and  either  corrupted  the  minds  of  the 
latter,  or  by  them  were  found  out  and  thrown 
away.     Even  where  the  Fear  of  God   has  more 


28  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

reasonable  grounds,  it  might  be  plausibly  argued 
that  its  moral  effects  are  only  temporary,  and  that 
the  aim  of  true  religion  has  ever  been  to  replace 
fear  by  nobler  influences,  without  which  it  cannot 
permanently  elevate  the  character. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  requires  little  observation 
or  analysis  to  show,  that  while  there  is  thus  a  Fear 
which  is  false  and  perishable,  there  is  another  that  is 
true,  inevitable,  salutary,  and  enduring.  To  put 
it  on  the  lowest,  the  least  moral,  grounds:  in  a 
universe,  where  so  much  is  unknown  and  inscrut- 
able, whether  concerning  the  Supreme  Being  or  our 
own  ultimate  fate;  where  the  Powers  at  work  are 
so  awful  and  we  so  weak  and  ignorant;  where  the 
best,  the  most  spiritual  and  delicate,  of  which  we 
are  conscious,  appears  so  often  to  be  frustrated  and 
crushed  by  sheer  force — who  among  us  can  escape 
the  discipline  of  fear?  And  discipline  it  is  in  its 
power  of  arresting  the  mind,  purging  us  of  pride 
and  inducing  sobriety,  vigilance  and  awe.  Nor 
even  when  the  full  light  of  religion  and  morality 
is  introduced,  and  we  come  to  know  God 
better  in  His  Righteousness  and  Mercy,  does  it 
seem  possible  or  even  desirable  for  us  to  outgrow 
Fear  and  replace  it  by  other  religious  emotions. 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  29 

For  there  is  always  the  sense  of  guilt,  which  grows 
as  conscience  grows  and  the  heart  becomes  more 
refined;  there  is  always,  and  in  an  increasing 
degree,  the  sense  of  the  stupendousness  of  the 
moral  ideal  and  obligation;  and  even  when  wc 
recognise  God  as  Love,  there  is  the  increase 
of  our  sensitiveness  and  responsibilities  towards  a 
Being,  who  deals  with  us  in  such  Patience  and  such 
Grace.  And  this,  too,  may  be  called  the  Fear  of 
the  Lord. 

There  is,  therefore,  a  salutary  and  a  permanent 
Fear  of  God  as  well  as  one  that  is  false  and  perish- 
able. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  writer  of  our  Psalm  had 
such  a  distinction  in  his  mind.  Certainly  he 
enjoyed  the  opportunity  of  observing  it  in  view  of 
the  heathen  religions  by  which  his  people  were  sur- 
rounded. These  were  rank  with  fear  and  with  the 
unclean  tempers  that  fear  begets.  Probably  the 
Psalm  was  written  at  a  date,  when  the  decay  of  the 
Syrian  religions  was  becoming  obvious,  when  one 
after  another  of  their  gods  was  found  ineffective, 
and  the  worshippers  had  grown  weary  of  rites  as 
burdensome  and  cruel  as  they  were  futile.  In 
opposition    to    such    moribund    superstitions    the 


30  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

Psalmist  boldly  says:    The  fear  of  the  Lord — the 
God  of  Israel — is  clean  and  enduring  for  ever. 

Now  the  Psalmist  makes  this  claim  for  his 
religion  in  a  Psalm  which  sings  the  praise  of  the 
written  forms  in  which  that  religion  is  enforced. 
The  Law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect,  the  testimonies  of 
the  Lord  are  sure,  the  statutes  of  the  Lord  are 
right,  the  commandment  of  the  Lord  is  pure,  the 
judgements  or  ordinances  of  the  Lord  are  true. 
All  these  are  well-known  names  for  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  especially  for  the  body 
of  sacred  Law  which  they  contain.  When  among 
the  five  terms,  each  clearly  significant  of  the 
Scriptures,  the  Psalmist  introduces  the  abstract 
expression  the  Fear  of  the  Lord;  he  must  mean 
something  much  the  same:  the  Revealed  Word  of 
God — but  rather  in  its  general  character  and 
influence  than  in  its  separate  precepts  and  laws. 
He  must  mean  the  awe,  the  obedience,  the  dis- 
cipline and  inspiration  of  the  Book  whose  praise 
is  the  burden  of  his  song.  The  Christian  Church 
has  legitimately  extended  his  words  to  the  larger 
body  of  Scriptures  which  forms  her  Bible.  I  wish 
that  we  should  now  bring  ourselves  under  this 
moral  power  and   permanence  of  our  Bible,   and 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  31 

earnestly  seek  for  a  little  to  lay  upon  our  hearts  the 
unique  authority  which  is  here  claimed  for  it.  The 
Fear  of  the  Lord  is  clean,  enduring  for  ever. 

I  do  not  propose  to  follow  one  very  obvious  way 
of  establishing  this  claim  for  the  Bible:  viz.,  by 
showing  from  the  history  of  the  world  its  divine 
power  of  cleansing  social  life,  organising  savage 
communities,  rebuking  the  moral  decadence  of 
civilised  nations,  and  holding  before  mankind  the 
still  unexhausted  ideals  of  freedom  and  virtue.  It 
is  true  that  parts  of  the  Bible  have  been  used 
throughout  all  the  Christian  centuries — used 
frequently  and  by  all  the  Churches — ^to  defend  the 
divine  right  of  tyrants,  and  to  sanction  the  worst 
forms  of  intolerance.  Yet  it  would  be  easy  to 
show  that  such  abuses  were  due  never  to  the  Bible 
itself,  but  to  misinterpretations,  especially  of  the 
Old  Testament — misinterpretations  made  in  dis- 
loyalty to  Christ's  teaching  about  the  latter 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  in  ignorance 
of  His  Spirit.  It  would  be  easy  to  show 
that  such  abuses  were  exceptional,  and  that 
in  spite  of  them  the  Bible  has  been  the 
charter  of  the  freedom  of  the  peoples  of 
Europe,    and    the    strongest    inspiration    of    their 


32  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

private  and  public  virtues — for  instance,  that  the 
more  debasing  vices,  which  had  been  tolerated  alike 
by  the  philosophers  and  statesmen  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  were  by  the  influence  of  the  Mosaic  Law 
for  the  first  time  rebuked  and  restrained;  and  so 
much  restrained  that  the  very  names  of  some  of 
them  have  disappeared  from  popular  knowledge. 
One  could  prove  that  the  Bible  built  the  home  and 
provoked  the  beginnings  of  popular  education: 
that  it  moulded  new  languages;  that  it  articulated 
and  enforced  the  efforts  of  young  nations  towards 
independence  and  their  destined  work  for  human- 
ity; that  it  brought  health  to  art  and  literature; 
that  it  enlightened  the  ignorant  and  ennobled  the 
humble;  that  it  gave  courage  to  lonely  men  to 
stand  alone  for  truth  and  justice;  and  that  it 
endowed  the  oppressed  poor  of  all  the  centuries 
with  an  energy  and  a  hope  of  struggle  with  which 
nothing  else  could  have  inspired  them.  No  history 
has  illustrated  this  more  than  our  own  in  Scotland. 
But  from  so  tempting  a  review  let  us  rather  turn 
to  a  task  more  urgent  in  our  own  day :  the  attempt 
to  appreciate  the  moral  character  of  the  Bible  as  a 
whole;  and  enforce  upon  our  own  hearts  and 
consciences  its  inspiration  and  ideals. 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  33 

I 

At  the  outset  we  are  met  by  one  g^reat  difficulty. 
The  keenest  criticism,  which  the  Bible  has  cncoun-, 
tered  in  our  day,  the  strongest  doubts  of  it  stirring 
in  men's  minds,  have  reference  not  to  its  historical 
trustworthiness,  about  which  so  much  is  said,  but 
to  the  moral  teaching  especially  of  its  earliest  por- 
tions. We  are  asked:  Are  there  not  present  in 
these  the  very  elements  of  a  false  fear  of  God  to 
which  you  have  just  traced  so  much  of  the  slavish- 
ness  and  impurity  of  other  religions?  Are  not  those 
chapters  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  which  describe 
the  first  growth  of  human  civilisation,  somewhat 
tinged  by  the  fear,  that  imputes  to  the  Deity  a 
jealousy  of  the  material  and  intellectual  achieve- 
ments of  His  creatures?  Is  the  morality  enforced 
upon  early  Israel  not  a  narrow  morality?  Are  its 
interests  not  confined  mainly  to  a  nation  and  to 
their  public  duties  in  war  and  peace?  Is  there 
not  wanting  in  parts  a  spiritual  treatment  of  the 
individual  and  of  his  rights  with  God,  independent 
of  the  nation?  Are  not  practises  enjoined,  tempers 
enforced,  and  laws  prescribed  which  could  only  be 
temporary,  and  which  were  bound  to  pass  away,  as 


34  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

they  did  pass  away,  before  higher  ideals  and  a  purer 
dispensation?  How  then  can  you  say  the  fear  of 
the  Lord  is  clean  and  enduring  for  ever? 

A  number  of  these  charges  we  are  bound  to 
admit  to  be  true^ — but  what  then?  Obvious  as 
such  difficulties  are,  the  solution  of  them  is  quite 
as  obvious,  and  it  lies  on  the  pages  of  Scripture 
itself. 

Let  us  remember  one  great  fact  about  Revela- 
tion. Revelation  when  it  comes  from  God  to  man, 
has  to  tak^  man  as  it  finds  him.  It  has  to  work 
upon  him  through  the  religious  ideas  and  customs 
which  he  already  possesses.  It  must  use  the 
language,  the  symbols,  and  to  some  extent  the 
intellectual  ideas  and  moral  principles  by  which  he 
already  lives.  New  truths  about  God  have  to 
grow  out  of  the  sheaths  of  old  ones,  and  for  a  time 
they  must  mix  with  the  long-lingering  influences 
of  the  latter.  The  moral  education  of  the  race  can 
only  be  a  gradual  and  a  slow  process.  In  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  our  Lord  Himself  has 
clearly  expounded  the  fact  of  a  progressive  revela- 
tion under  the  Old  Testament.  He  rebuked 
tempers  and  He  abrogated  laws,  which  as  He  says 
were  permitted  to  men  for  the  hardness  of  their 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  35 

hearts.  Thus  through  Him  the  Bible  itself  con- 
tains the  correction  of  its  rudimentary  stages :  the 
enlargement  of  their  ideals:  the  full  purification 
of  all  their  spirit.  But  while  thus  judging  the 
earlier  parts  of  the  Bible  our  Lord  equally  affirmed 
that  a  divine,  creative  power  had  been  at  work  in 
the  religion  of  His  people  from  the  very  first. 
And  to-day  there  is  not  one  of  the  most  grudging 
critics  of  the  Old  Testament  who  is  able  to  deny 
that,  in  spite  of  the  low  levels  from  which  the 
religion  of  Israel  had  to  start,  there  was  present  in 
it  from  the  first  a  moral  purpose  and  energy  which 
was  not  present  in  any  of  the  other  religions — ^the 
germ  and  potency  of  that  perfect  will  of  God, 
which  through  it  was  ultimately  revealed  to  man. 

Do  not  let  us,  therefore,  do  the  Bible  the  childish 
injustice  of  estimating  it  by  things  which  its  spirit 
finally  outgrew:  the  defeat  and  outdistancing  of 
which  represent  its  divine  victory  and  triumph. 
Do  not  let  us  condemn  the  Old  Testament  for 
practises  and  tempers,  which  its  prophets  them- 
selves condemn.  Let  us  rather  measure  the  Bible 
by  the  unity  of  ethical  purpose  which  it  manifests 
from  first  to  last,  by  the  completeness  with  which  it 
leaves  behind  every  trace  of  a  defective  morality, 


36  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

and  by  the  uncompromising  and  invincible  oppesi- 
tion,  which  the  spirit  of  it  offers  to  every  political 
and  religious  interest,  that  insinuates  itself  as  a 
substitute  for  the  ethical  service  of  God. 

II 

Let  me  give  some  particulars  from  successive 
stages  of  the  process. 

Take  to  begin  with  those  tempers  and  practises 
of  early  Israel  which  some  men  feel  as  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  their  faith  in  the  Bible.  Are  we  not 
rather  to  see  in  the  gradual  disappearance  of  these 
from  the  pages  of  Scriptures  the  illustration  of  the 
omnipotence  of  God's  Spirit,  the  fulfilment  of 
His  claim  who  said:  Behold  I  make  all  things 
new. 

Or  take  those  later  rites  and  doctrines  of 
religion,  which  in  their  proper  proportion  and  at 
certain  historical  crises  may  have  been  legitimate 
and  necessary,  but  of  which  His  prophets  demanded 
the  abolition,  when  they  were  obtruded  as  substi- 
tutes for  character  and  ethical  service.  For 
instance,  when,  in  a  period  of  great  national 
prosperity,  ritual  and  sacrifice  were  elaborated,  and 
the  nation  laid  the  emphasis  of  their  trust  upon 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  7,7 

these,  the  prophets  condemned  all  ritual,  and 
insisted  that  justice,  purity  and  love  were  the  only 
laws  which  God  had  given  to  men.  For  I  spake 
not  unto  your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them  in  the 
day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt 
concerning  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices,  but  this 
thing  I  commanded  them,  saying  Hearken  unto 
my  voice  and  I  will  be  your  God  and  ye  shall  be  my 
people  and  walk  in  all  the  way  that  I  command 
you}  Or  again :  /  hate,  I  despise  your  feasts,  and 
I  will  take  no  delight  in  your  solemn  assem- 
blies, .  .  .  But  let  justice  roll  down  as  waters  and 
righteousness  as  an  ever-flowing  stream.^  Or 
again:  /  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice?  Or 
again :  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations,  incense  is  an 
abomination  to  me:  new  moons  and  sabbaths,  call- 
ing of  assemblies  I  cannot  away  with.  Wash  you, 
make  you  clean,  cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do  well. 
Seek  justice,  relieve  the  oppressed,  champion  the 
fatherless,  plead  for  the  widows.^  Or  again: 
Is  this  the  fast  I  have  chosen? — a  day  for  a 
man  to  afflict  his  soul?  .  .  .  Is  not  this  rather 
the    fast    I    have    chosen? — to    loose    the    bands 

^Jeremiah  vii.  3  2  £.  3  Hosea  vi.  6. 

'Amos  V.  24  f.  *  Isaiah  i.  13-17. 


38  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  locks  of  the  yoke,  to 
deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry  and  that  thou  bring 
the  poor  into  thy  house.  .  .  .^  Or  again:  He 
hath  shewed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good:  and  what 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee;  but  to  do  justly  and 
to  love  mercy  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  GodP 
Here  is  morality  to  the  uttermost:  righteousness 
so  single,  so  strenuous,  and  so  victorious  over 
every  national  interest  and  religious  requirement 
that  its  purity  and  eternal  validity  are  past  all 
question. 

Or  again,  when  the  nation,  founding  upon  this 
absolute  demand  for  righteousness,  and  upon  the 
promise  of  rewards  by  which  it  was  accompanied, 
constructed  the  dogma  that  righteousness  was 
always  followed  by  prosperity  and  that,  conversely, 
suffering  must  be  the  proof  of  guilt,  God  inspired 
men  to  show  that  righteousness  must  be  pursued 
for  its  own  sake  alone,  apart  from  all  rewards  and 
in  spite  of  adversity  and  pain.  By  Jeremiah  and 
the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job,  every  literary  acid — 
irony,  satire,  scepticism  in  its  most  bitter  form — 
along  with  the  more  powerful  solvents  of  the  dis- 
appointments and  adversities  of  life,  are  employed 

'  Isaiah  Iviii.  5-7.  *Micah  vi.  8. 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  39 

to  eat  out  from  the  mind  of  Israel  this  dogma  of 
the  essential  union  of  righteousness  and  prosperity; 
till  we  find  left  alone,  naked,  trembling,  and  aston- 
ished at  its  own  birth,  the  faith  that  a  good  con- 
science is  independent  of  every  other  aid;  and  that 
each  experience  of  pain,  of  doubt  and  of  forsaken- 
ness, which  besets  it,  is  the  means  whereby  it  is 
brought  to  purer  and  more  disinterested  convictions 
of  its  duty  and  its  strength.  Though  He  slay  me 
yet  will  I  trust  Him, 

All  this  is  even  more  evident  in  the  New 
Testament.  Throughout  it  there  is  no  aspiration 
after  either  political  or  ecclesiastical  empire.  Our 
aim,  says  the  Apostle,  is  to  present  every  man  per- 
fect in  Christ  Jesus,  For  this  is  the  will  of  God 
even  your  sanctiUcation,  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
peace,  joy  and  righteousness  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Follozv  after  righteousness,  godliness,  faith,  love, 
patience  and  meekness.  Never,  either  by  Jesus  or 
by  His  evangelists,  was  a  word  spoken  which  could 
burden  or  distract  the  soul  in  its  straight  fulfilment 
of  the  command :  Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in 
Heaven  is  perfect. 

So,  then,  the  ethical  aim  of  the  Bible  lies  before 
us,  in  spite  of  all  embarrassments,  single,  strenuous, 


40  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

undeviating,  supreme.  Every  one  of  us  has  within 
him  its  echo,  its  proof,  its  other  self.  For  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  his  moral  growth  a  man's  ideals  are 
necessarily  narrow;  his  vision  of  the  scope  and 
height  of  ethical  obligation  is  circumscribed.  But 
whether  with  the  narrower  ideals  or  afterwards  with 
the  wider,  whether  with  a  dim  intelligence  of  duty 
or  with  a  full  and  vivid  one,  his  conscience  always 
lifts  him  to  the  ideal  and  drives  him  forward  to  the 
duty;  commanding  him  to  moral  effort  for  its  own 
sake  and  irrespective  of  whether  he  thereby  fulfil, 
or  fail  in,  other  desires  and  ambitions.  At  the  first, 
I  say,  his  conscience  may  have  a  narrow  sphere  and 
little  light.  But  in  the  moral  intention  it  never 
falters  nor  is  ambiguous;  and,  being  followed,  it 
leads  a  man  towards  the  infinite  field  and  towards 
the  perfect  light.  In  all  these  respects  God's 
written  Word  is  at  one  with  the  Revelation  He 
utters  within  us.  Its  divine  purity  and  unchange- 
able sovereignty  are  as  little  to  be  doubted  as  those 
of  conscience  itself.  Nothing  can  be  imagined 
more  reliable,  more  certain  never  to  fail,  more 
certain  to  fulfil  its  promises  and  lead  us  to  the  full 
knowledge  of  God's  will.  It  is  clean,  enduring 
for  ever. 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD 


III 


Now  as  to  the  source  of  this  morality,  and  the 
authority  of  it,  we  are  left  in  no  doubt.  As  our 
text  says,  it  is  the  Fear  of  the  Lord:  something 
personal  in  its  source,  authority  and  means  of 
enforcement.  Nor  is  it  the  prostration  of  the  mind 
before  the  unknown  and  inscrutable  power  of  the 
Almighty;  although,  as  I  have  said,  this  also  has 
its  place  in  the  religious  experience  of  man.  Still 
less  is  it  obedience  to  God's  arbitrary  decrees.  It 
is  much  rather  the  reverence,  the  awe  and  the 
impulse  to  imitation,  which  are  stirred  in  a  soul  by 
the  revelation  of  the  Character  of  God.  It  has 
been  justly  said  that  the  "ultimate  foundation  of 
all  morality  lies  in  our  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
Being"  (Mary  WoUstonecraft) ;  and  no  words 
could  better  describe  the  origin  and  reason  of  the 
morality  enforced  by  the  Bible.  Every  rise  in 
Israel  towards  the  full  vision  of  duty,  every  higher 
moral  ideal,  every  new  commandment,  started  from 
some  fresh  revelation  of  God  Himself.  It  was 
because  they  saw  God  exalted  in  righteousness  that 
the  prophets  proclaimed  the  absolute  morality  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking.    It  was  because  God 


42  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

had  so  loved  Israel,  redeemed  them,  spared  them, 
guided  them  through  the  wilderness,  and  given 
them  freedom  and  a  stage  for  their  history,  that  the 
Book  of  Deuteronomy  moves  them  to  love  for  one 
another,  to  kindness  for  the  poor  and  the  slave,  and 
to  humanity  towards  animals.  And  it  was  again 
because  God  had  redeemed  them,  and  in  His  grace 
furnished  their  unworthy  life  with  His  Light  and 
Truth,  that  the  great  Evangelist  of  the  Exile  laid 
upon  the  people  that  obligation  of  service  to 
humanity;  which  still  remains  the  ideal  of  in- 
dividuals as  well  as  nations.  Be  ye  holy  for  I  am 
holy.  Be  ye  perfect  even  as  your  Father  in  Heaven 
is  perfect.  We  love  Him,  and  one  another, 
because  He  iirst  loved  us.  One  is  your  Father 
and  ye  are  brethren.  Such  are  the  keynotes  of  the 
moral  preaching  of  the  Bible;  throughout  its 
morality  is  the  Fear  of  the  Lord  Himself. 

IV 

Now  the  source  and  character  of  that  morality 
being  what  it  is,  it  follows  that  the  means  by  which 
it  is  enforced  throughout  the  Bible  are  not  the 
instruments  of  mere  force  and  wonder,  always  more 
or  less  irrelevant  in  moral  teaching,  but  the  declara- 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  43 

tion  of  the  truth  itself,  the  revelation  of  the 
Supreme  Being  in  whose  character  and  actions  it  is 
embodied,  and  the  conviction — strong  against  all 
experience  to  the  contrary — that  since  it  is  His  will 
and  purpose,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  realised  in  the 
world. 

Thus  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  (chap,  xiii.) 
expressly  warns  Israel  that  miracles,  though  they 
happen  as  genuine  signs  of  Divine  Power,  can 
never  be  a  test  between  the  false  and  the  true 
prophet.  The  ultimate  test,  it  says,  must  lie  in  the 
character  of  the  prophet's  message,  and  the  revela- 
tion which  he  makes  of  God.  In  conformity  with 
that  the  great  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament 
accompany  none  of  the  prophecies  I  have  quoted 
with  the  performance  of  miracles,  but  lay  the  truths 
of  these  in  their  independent  weight  upon  the 
minds  and  consciences  of  their  people.  Our  Lord 
employed  wonderful  deeds  to  illustrate  the  power 
and  benevolence  of  the  Most  High,  but  He 
rebuked  the  people  for  being  content  with  the 
unstable  wonder  which  miracles  exerted,  and  in  one 
parable  after  another  He  explained  that  the  efficacy 
of  God's  Word  lay  in  its  own  inherent  potency  and 
in  the  preparedness  of  men's  hearts  to  receive  it. 


44  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

It  was  seed  cast  into  the  ground :  it  was  a  pearl  of 
great  price  which  when  a  man  saw,  he  straightway 
would  sell  all  that  he  had  in  order  to  buy  it:  it 
was  found  treasure,  flashing  from  the  dust  of 
common  life  its  own  beauty  and  richness:  it  was 
leaven  working  by  its  native  force:  it  was  light 
that  required  neither  argument  to  prove  nor  herald 
to  proclaim  it.  Again,  when  one  wakened  in 
torment  said  of  his  five  brethren:  if  one  go  to 
them  from  the  dead  they  will  repent,  the  reply  was 
//  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
neither  will  they  he  persuaded  if  one  rise 
from  the  dead}  Hence  the  reiteration  of  the 
simple  letter  of  our  Lord's  teaching  with  a  plain- 
ness which  some  have  called  commonplace.  It  is 
not  commonplace.  It  is  moral  truth  offering  itself 
upon  its  own  evidence  to  the  conscience  of  man; 
travelling  in  the  greatness  of  its  strength.  By 
itself  it  was  bound  to  do  everything.  The  miracle 
of  miracles  is  the  simple,  unaided  Word  of  God. 
//  shall  not  return  unto  Me  void:  hut  it  shall 
accomplish  that  which  I  please  and  it  shall  prosper 
in  the  thing  whereto  I  sent  it. 

•  Luke  xvi.  30,  31. 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  45 

V 

Yet  all  this  is  only  to  present  morality  as  educa- 
tion, and  the  experience  of  every  man  is  the  proof 
of  how  one-sided  a  view  that  is  of  our  moral  life. 
We  do  not  only  grow  from  one  ideal  to  another. 
We  have  to  struggle.  Every  man  stands  between 
two  worlds,  each  of  which  claims  him  for  its  own, 
and  the  life  of  his  spirit  in  order  to  grow  must  be 
a  constant  warfare  for  the  interests  of  the  one 
against  the  forces  of  the  other.  How  vividly  does 
the  Bible  represent  this  for  every  figure  which 
crosses  its  pages!  From  the  Garden  of  Eden  to 
the  Garden  of  Gethsemane;  from  the  temptation 
before  the  tree  of  knowledge  to  the  temptations  in 
the  wilderness:  with  Adam  and  Abraham,  with 
Jacob  and  Joseph,  with  Saul  and  David,  with 
Solomon  and  Ahab  and  Gehazi,  with  Peter  and 
Judas,  with  Paul  and  Demas — with  one  and  all  it 
is  the  same.  They  stand  between  two  worlds  and 
are  conscript  to  their  eternal  warfare.  This  is  the 
universal  lot  of  humanity,  and  to  this,  if  my 
conscience  has  fallen  asleep  to  the  fact  that  it  is  my 
lot  also,  the  Bible  moves  me  again  with  the  Word 
of  God:  at  one  with  conscience  but  far  stronger 


46  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

and  more  explicit.  A  great  sceptic  has  said :  that  if 
anything  could  prove  the  Book  to  be  the  Word  of 
God,  it  is  this  way  it  has  of  aiding  conscience  in 
opening  our  eyes  to  the  two  possibilities  which  lie 
before  us  and  in  bidding  us  make  our  choice  for 
eternity.  Here  is  fear  in  the  noblest  sense  of  the 
word :  fear  that  is  deem  and  enduring  for  ever. 

But  if  the  Bible  thus  be  at  one  with  conscience 
in  revealing  the  two  worlds  between  which  we 
stand,  how  thoroughly  is  it  at  one  with  experience 
in  revealing  to  us  ourselves — us  who  have  to  make 
that  eternal  choice.  With  a  penetration  and  a 
truthfulness,  attempted  by  no  other  book,  it  un- 
covers the  secrets  of  the  human  heart.  Scripture 
gives  my  conscience  new  eyes  to  see  me;  new  lips 
to  condemn  me;  new  ears  to  catch  those  voices  of 
truth  which  murmur  in  my  mind  what  I  really  am. 
Obliged  to  that  moral  warfare  to  which  all  are  con- 
script, how  helpless  I  stand  in  face  of  it.  How 
deep  the  Word  of  God  casts  a  man!  How  weak 
it  leaves  him ! 

Is  there  one  of  us  who  does  not  tremble  when  on 
the  one  side  there  are  put  before  him  the  momentous 
issues  that  open  through  God's  Word;  and  upon 
the  other,  he  realises,  as  only  God's  Word  can  make 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  47 

him  realise,  that  he — his  mind,  his  heart,  his  will, 
are  the  poor  things  which  have  to  work  out  the 
victory ! 

VI 

But  the  Bible  goes  further  than  these  obvious 
elements  of  morality — and  among  all  the  constitu- 
ents of  a  clean  and  a  permanent  religious  fear  with 
which  it  endows  us  this  is  surely  the  most  sancti- 
fying as  it  is  the  most  awful — ^the  Word  of  God,  I 
say,  goes  further  and  tells  us  that  the  effort,  the 
agony,  nay  the  very  shame  and  curse  of  man's 
moral  warfare  are  shared  and  borne  by  God  Him- 
self. 

The  Fear  of  the  Lord,  the  Fear  of  the  Lord, 
descending  from  the  very  Person  and  Character  of 
the  Most  High,  is  not  according  to  the  Bible  the 
fear  only  of  a  God  of  infinite  Holiness :  the  awful 
King  and  Judge  of  the  creatures  of  His  hand. 
God  is  revealed  in  the  Bible  not  as  regnant  and 
judicial  righteousness  alone;  but  as  righteousness 
militant  and  suffering  at  our  side:  for  us  men  and 
for  our  salvation  descending  from  on  high:  enter- 
ing human  griefs  and  carrying  human  sorrows: 
setting  men's   sins  not  only  in  the  light  of  His 


48  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

countenance  but  upon  His  heart:  and  making  His 
own  the  agony  and  the  travail  of  all  their  ethical 
struggles. 

You  know  in  how  many  human  similitudes  the 
prophets  brought  that  home  to  the  heart  of  Israel. 
A  nation,  which  believed  itself  forbidden  to  make 
any  image  of  the  Deity  after  any  mortal  likeness, 
was  bidden  also  to  conceive  Him  with  the  features 
of  human  effort  and  pain:  as  a  Warrior  sharing 
His  people's  battles;  as  a  Father  bearing  their 
griefs:  and  in  one  extreme  figure  as  a  Mother 
travailing  in  her  pangs  for  their  new  birth  and 
restoration.  In  all  their  afilictions  He  was 
abided:  in  His  love  and  in  His  pity  He  redeemed 
them;  but  His  love  was  not  only  pity.  It  was 
fellow-suffering;  and  beyond  that  an  agony  for 
their  holiness,  whose  depth  and  height  they  could 
not  comprehend;  which  was  therefore  endured 
for  them,  and  by  entering  into  which  by  faith  they 
were  lifted,  purified  and  redeemed. 

These  are  the  real  Old  Testament  prophecies 
of  the  Incarnation:  God  manifest  in  the  flesh, 
entering  our  moral  warfare,  in  our  weakness,  at  our 
side,  tempted  in  all  points  as  we  are,  making  the 
shame  of  our  sin  and  the  misery  of  our  estrange- 


THE  WORD  OF  GOD  49 

ment  from  God  His  burden,  and  at  the  last,  as  St. 
Peter  says,  bearing  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on 
the  tree. 

It  is  in  that,  in  all  that  wonderful  story  of  the 
suffering  and  sacrificial  Love  of  God,  which  cul- 
minates on  the  Cross  of  Christ,  that  we  feel,  so  far 
as  with  human  hearts  we  may,  the  length  and  the 
depth  of  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  This  Fear  is  not 
merely  the  infiniteness  of  the  moral  ideal  which 
lies  before  us  all,  and  not  merely  the  knowledge  of 
our  own  incapacity  in  face  of  it,  but  the  faith 
that  the  Warfare  is  God's  as  well,  that  our 
sins,  as  Hosea  saw  long  ago,  cost  the  Divine 
Nature  more  pain  than  anger,  and  that  His  Love 
reaches  the  victory  for  us,  only  through  agony, 
shame,  and  all  the  self-sacrifice  of  which  Perfect 
Love  alone  is  capable. 

The  Story  of  this  Divine  Passion,  which  means 
both  our  condemnation,  who  have  made  it  necessary 
by  our  sins,  and  our  salvation,  if  we  feel  the  peni- 
tence which  it  inspires  as  nothing  else  can,  is  found 
in  these  pages  and  in  these  alone.  Hence, 
and  hence  only,  their  divine  validity.  Not  their 
inerrancy;  not  that  they  answer  to  this  or  that 
theory  of  inspiration;  but  that  independent  of  all 


50  THE  WORD  OF  GOD 

theories,  whether  old  or  new,  they  tell  to  men  the 
story  of  the  travailing  and  suffering  Love  of  God : 
the  one  Passion,  the  one  Victory  in  all  the  history 
of  time  which  can  never  grow  old,  nor  lose  its 
indispensable  force  for  the  sinful  hearts  of  God's 
children;  clean  and  enduring  for  ever;  needing 
nothing,  as  Love  needs  nothing,  of  external  author- 
ity or  argument,  to  prove  itself  to  the  heart  that 
requires  it. 

So  then,  beloved,  work  out  your  ozvn  salvation 
zidth  fear  and  trembling,  for  it  is  God,  God  Him- 
self, who  worketh  in  you. 


Ill 

TEMPTATION 

Then  was  Jesus   led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  be 
tempted  of  the  devil. — Matthew  iv.  i. 

'T^EMPTATION  is  the  one  certainty— the  one 
■*'  immediate  certainty  before  us  all.  It  is  an 
experience  so  inevitable  and  so  near,  that  we  must 
welcome  every  sympathy  and  every  aid  one  can 
find  beneath  its  mysterious  onset.  Let  us  now 
learn  what  One  felt  it  to  be,  who  was  in  all  points 
tempted  as  we  are,  and  what  it  meant  for  Him.  I 
do  not  intend  to  go  into  the  details  of  the  three 
forms  of  temptation  recorded  in  this  chapter.  Let 
us  abide  by  the  first  verse  of  the  story  and  consider 
the  general  elements  of  Temptation  which  that 
describes. 

In  Temptation,  it  tells  us,  there  arc  these  three 
factors :  God,  the  Power  of  Evil,  and  the  Tempted 
Man  himself. 


52  TEMPTATION 

I 

The  first  of  these  is  Gcxi.  I  suppose  that 
looking  at  Temptation  in  the  abstract  this  is 
easily  acknowledged.  It  is  indeed  asserted  in 
many  passages  of  God's  word.  And  yet  in  the 
concrete  experience,  in  the  very  grip  and  breath 
of  the  temptation  itself,  this  is  the  hardest  thing 
of  all  to  believe.  We  are  rushed  and  blinded. 
The  heart  feels  left  to  itself  and  terribly  forsaken. 
Then  was  Jesus  led  up  into  the  wilderness — to  he 
tempted.  Universal  as  temptation  is,  we  go  into 
it  as  we  go  into  death,  each  of  us  for  himself  and 
absolutely  alone.  And,  in  this,  temptation  is  even 
worse  than  death.  For  in  the  awful  hollow  and 
vacancy  of  dying  there  is — as  our  predecessors  there 
have  told  us — often  the  greater  room  for  God; 
and  the  religious  instincts,  freed  from  all  embar- 
rassments of  the  world,  can  hold  the  more  closely 
to  Him.  But  in  temptation  they  are  paralysed. 
The  touch  of  evil  on  the  soul  does  what  the  claw 
of  the  tiger  was  fabled  to  do  upon  the  body.  It 
deadens  every  nerve  except  the  one  it  tears.  A 
besetting  sin,  a  strong  passion  will  suck  the  reality 
out  of  all  else:    out  of  love  and  truth  and  honour 


TEMPTATION  53 

and  God.  And  something  of  this  is  felt  in  the 
very  beginnings  of  temptation.  Like  our  Lord 
we  draw  into  the  wilderness.  The  grass  and  the 
flowers  cease,  faces  cease,  comradeship  and  sym- 
pathy are  gone.  God  himself  seems  gone,  and 
we  are  alone  with  wild  beasts. 

Ah,  how  easy  it  is  to  fight  other  battles,  which 
bring  their  own  courage  with  them!  In  the  strife 
for  college  prizes,  in  the  strife  for  daily  bread,  in 
the  struggle  after  truth,  in  man's  war  with  nature, 
in  the  effort  and  rivalry  of  debate — the  air  is  full 
of  enthusiasm.  But  on  this  dark  field  without 
touch  of  the  ranks  shoulder  to  shoulder,  without 
the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  too  often  without  the 
sight  or  sympathy  of  any  comrade,  the  soul  passes 
to  its  battle  alone,  and  sometimes  as  if  forsaken  of 
God  Himself. 

Now  the  first  rally,  which  it  is  possible  to  sotmd 
to  our  hearts  under  this  awful  loneliness  of  tempta- 
tion, is  that  which  is  also  the  first  to  be  sounded 
under  those  other  solitudes,  which  await  us  all,  of 
pain  and  death.  In  pain  and  death  the  first 
thought  which  steadies  us,  and  makes  peace  foe- 
further  thinking,  is  that  they  are  universal  and 
parts  of  the  appointed  order  of  things.     Well — 


54  TEMPTATION 

Temptation,  too,  is  a  bit  of  the  destiny  of  man. 
Suddenly  though  the  assauh  surge  upon  him,  it 
is  no  accident.  SoHtary  as  he  feels  in  his  battle, 
he  does  not  in  fact  fight  alone.  He  is  one  of  an 
innumerable  army  of  warriors,  and  if  for  a  little  he 
will  give  play  to  his  imagination,  what  an  army  it 
will  appear.  On  that  field  no  living  soul  is  idle, 
or  left  to  itself  without  orders,  without  a  trust, 
without  a  pledge.  Every  one  with  his  own 
temptation;  every  human  figure  interesting, 
pathetic  and  stimulating  to  look  upon.  Some  may 
be  blind,  some  in  panic,  some  forlorn.  But  there 
are  a  nobler  multitude.  If  God  be  hidden,  they 
cling  the  more  tightly  to  His  bare  word;  if  they 
sometimes  feel  He  has  left  them  alone,  they  cherish 
with  the  more  passion — and  by  just  the  measure 
of  the  distance  to  which  He  seems  removed — tlie 
conviction  that  He  has  trusted  them  to  be  alone. 
Think  of  the  dim  multitudes  who  are  fighting 
temptations  more  grinding  and  persistent  with  far 
feebler  strength  than  yours.  Think,  for  such  are 
still  left  in  the  world,  of  those  who  prefer 
a  life  of  exhausting  poverty  to  daily  opportunities 
of  compromising  with  honesty  or  selling  their 
purity  for  gold.     Individualise  them,  my  brothers, 


TEMPTATION  55 

individualise  them;  and  you  will  find  a  conscience 
and  a  rally  in  every  one  of  them.  Think  of  the 
men,  and  they  can  be  found  in  every  city,  who 
when  the  law  had  freed  them  from  all  obligation 
to  pay  their  creditors,  have  as  fortune  came  back 
to  them  used  her  favours  to  pay  every  one  of  their 
former  debts,  though  it  means  a  life  of  hard  labour 
instead  of  one  of  comfort  and  ease.  Think  of  the 
women,  you  will  find  them,  too,  in  every  great 
city,  who  are  battling  for  themselves  and  their 
children  on  a  few  shillings  a  week  against  tempta- 
tions that  say,  Yield  to  us  and  we  can  give  you 
food  and  clothing  enough  for  them  and  you. 
Holding  out!  What  starved  garrison,  that 
marched  from  its  inviolate  fortress  with  all  the 
honours  of  war  and  to  the  admiration  of  its  foes, 
ever  deserved  half  the  glory  or  for  our  hearts  was 
charged  with  half  the  inspiration,  which  thousands 
of  tempted  souls  deserve  and  can '  afford  to  us, 
who  hold  the  fortresses  of  their  lonely  lives  against 
the  devils  of  dishonesty  and  greed  and  lust.  And 
yet  you  have  strong  men  whining  to-day  all  the 
world  over — and  some  of  them  parading  their 
whines  in  literature — that  the  temptations  of  their 
strength  are  too  great  for  them;  and  slipping  off 


56  TEMPTATION 

into  the  pleasant  mire  with  the  cry,  I  cannot  help 
it.    What  forgetf ulness !    What  cowardice! 

Have  you  ever  watched  the  sense  of  what  I 
have  tried  to  present  to  your  imagination,  dawning 
in  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul?  No  man  felt  the 
loneliness  of  temptation  more  than  he;  none  has 
sent  wilder  cries  out  of  the  despair  of  that  hour 
when  evil  shuts  us  in,  and  God  and  His  fair  worlds 
are  blotted  out  as  with  a  mist.  Yet  how  does  Paul 
recover  himself?  By  remembering  that  no  temp- 
tation can  overtake  him  except  such  as  is  common 
to  man  ^ ;  by  obeying  his  own  call,  Look  not  every 
man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the 
things  of  others^;  by  imagining  life  as  a  race- 
course and  every  man  that  striveth  for  the  mastery 
with  his  eye  on  the  goal;  by  seeing  life  as  a  war, 
and  his  brothers  everywhere  putting  on  their 
armour. 

It  is  such  visions,  which  rally  men's  hearts  under 
the  paralysis  that  comes  by  dwelling  upon  the 
mystery  and  loneliness  of  their  own  temptations. 
They  hear  the  noise  of  war  about  them.  Through 
the  chaos  of  human  life  they  see  a  line  of  battle 
set.     They  feel   shoulder  to  shoulder  with  thou- 

>i  Corinth.  X.  13.  »Pha.  ii.  4. 


TEMPTATION  57 

sands  of  brave  men.  The  rhythm  and  pageantry 
of  a  great  army  fill  what  a  moment  before  they 
thought  to  be  a  wilderness.  And  in  their  heart 
there  springs  a  strong  feeling  of  sympathy  and 
loyalty:  a  feeling  of  honour  to  do  their  best  and 
bravest  by  the  side  of  their  unfaltering  comrades 
in  the  war.  If  I  do  otherwise  behold,  I  deal 
treacherously  with  the  generation  of  God's 
children} 

Yet  there  is  more  behind.  It  is  through  this 
touch  with  our  fellow  men,  that  like  the  Psalmist 
whom  I  have  quoted,  we  reach  a  sense  of  God. 
By  the  sight  of  that  universal  war,  by  the  thrill  of 
those  steadfast  ranks  we  come  to  feel  that  they  and 
we  have  been  destined,  called,  charged  by  the 
Power  which  knows  and  orders  all.  More 
exquisite  still  we  know  that  we  have  been  trusted. 
God  Himself  has  placed  us  at  this  post  of  danger, 
not  only  with  the  command  to  overcome,  but  with 
all  that  the  bare  imperative  opens  from  the  heart 
of  it  to  the  eye  of  faith:  creative  moral  power, 
and  His  belief  in  us  that  we  will  use  that  moral 
power  and  stand  true  to  our  duty.  For  God  hath 
not     appointed     us     to    wrath,     but     to     obtain 

I  Psalm  Ixxiii.  15. 


58  TEMPTATION 

salvation — salvation     through     our     Lord     Jesus 
Christ} 

Now  see  how  all  this  general  belief  is 
heightened  and  enforced  upon  us  by  the  sight 
of  Jesus  Himself  in  our  battle.  That  even 
He  did  not  escape  the  strife,  how  infinitely  more 
sacred  must  it  make  our  own  position  there.  That 
He  felt  the  awful  difficulty  of  doing  the  Father's 
will;  that  even  to  Him  life  was  temptation,  and 
temptation  reached  the  rigour  of  agony — ^how 
much  that  means  to  us.  In  that  base  despair,  in 
that  coward's  and  deserter's  feeling  which  so  often 
besets  our  hearts — that  nobody  could  be  expected 
to  stand  the  contest,  that  it  is  our  helpless  fate  to 
yield — ^what  a  new  conscience,  what  a  new  sense 
of  power  it  is  to  see  that  He  also  took  post  and 
station  on  the  field  and  held  them  till  the  foe  was 
routed.  By  this  we  know  we  have  not  been  sent 
like  Uriah  into  the  hottest  of  the  battle  to  be  slain. 
We  take  Temptation  not  as  the  curse  of  our 
individual  wills,  too  worthless  for  a  higher  fate, 
but  as  the  debt  and  obligation  of  our  manhood 
glorified  in  Him. 

1 1  Thessal.  v.  f. 


TEMPTATION  59 

"  Was  the  trial  sore? 
Temptation  sharp?     Thank  God  a  second  time. 
Why  comes  temptation  but  for  man  to  meet 
And  master  and  make  crouch  beneath  his  foot, 
And  so  be  pedestalled  in  triumph?     Pray, 
'  Lead  us  into  no  such  temptations,  Lord! ' 
Yea,  but  O  Thou  whose  servants  are  the  brave 
Lead  such  temptations  by  the  head  and  hair. 
Reluctant  dragons  up  to  who  dares  fight. 
That  so  he  may  do  battle  and  have  praise." 

II 

But,  again,  though  led  by  the  Spirit  into  the 
wilderness  Jesus  was  led  up  to  be  tempted  of  the 
Devil. 

It  may  relieve  some  minds,  if  we  tell  ourselves 
with  regard  to  this  that  it  is  not  necessary  to 
believe  in  the  bodily  appearance  of  Satan  to  our 
Lord.  Indeed  our  belief  in  such  is  largely  due 
to  the  impression  on  our  imaginations  of  the 
efforts  of  painting  and  poetry  to  reproduce  this 
scene,  and  is  in  no  wise  required  by  the  narrative 
itself.  Yet  we  must  not  allow  such  needful 
reminders  to  weaken  our  appreciation  of  the  power 
which  Jesus  encountered  in  His  loneliness.  To 
Jesus  evil  was  a  force  and  an  intention  outside  of 
man,  though  it  had  its  allies  within  him.     It  was 


6o  TEMPTATION 

a  power  bigger  than  man  himself  could  breed; 
which  hungered  for  the  souls  of  men  and  could 
finally  have  them  for  its  own  with  the  same 
absoluteness  as  He  the  Son  of  God  and  Saviour 
of  the  World  longed  to  make  them  His.  Simon, 
Simon,  behold,  Satan  asked  to  have  you, 
that  he  might  sift  you  as  wheat}  And  Jesus 
said  this  from  His  own  experience  of  the 
subtilty  and  covetousness  of  evil.  In  the  earthly 
life  of  our  Lord  there  are  no  moments  so  intense 
as  those  in  which  He  felt  the  attempts  of  evil 
upon  Himself.  And  it  was  out  of  this  horror, 
that  in  spite  of  all  His  illustrations  of  the  necessity 
and  divine  uses  of  temptation,  He  bade  His 
disciples  pray  not  to  be  led  into  it. 

Yes,  brothers.  Temptation  however  much 
employed  in  the  Divine  Providence  is  not  only 
from  God;  not  only  an  examination  set  by  the 
Great  Master  to  His  pupils:  a  problem  and 
exercise  in  morals.  It  is  a  real  encounter  with  a 
real  foe:  not  a  mere  athletic  proposed  for  our 
health  and  the  development  of  our  souls,  but  a 
downright  battle  for  life,  with  a  strong  and  inex- 
orable a  foe.    Take  away  the  reality  of  the  warfare 

iLukexxii.  31. 


TEMPTATION  6l 

that  is  in  it,  and  you  take  away  even  its  uses  as  a 
discipline;  for  you  rob  it  of  its  truth.  The  men 
of  to-day  are  too  much  given  to  the  persuasion 
that  evil  is  only  an  instructor  in  life,  and  a  hard 
trainer:  that  temptation  especially  in  certain  forms 
is  nothing  but  the  opportunity  to  think  more 
widely,  feel  more  deeply,  live  more  richly.  In 
opposition  to  that  subtle  idea,  which  has  slain 
characters  from  the  beginning,  Christ  Jesus  tells  us 
that  evil  is  indeed  something  we  cannot  help 
encountering,  but  something  which  we  must 
encounter  as  a  very  foe;  coming  to  close  quarters 
with  it  as  with  a  power  which  seeks  us  out  and  out 
for  itself ;  and  which,  if  we  yield  to  it  in  any  of  its 
first  and  specious  demands,  is  only  the  more  able 
thereby  to  make  us  its  own.  Let  us  understand 
this.  It  is  not  safe  to  enter  any  temptation  with- 
out such  a  conviction.  These  things  we  meet  so 
carelessly,  thinking  that  at  the  worst  they  can  leave 
but  a  stain  on  our  honour,  a  smudge  on  our  imagi- 
nation, a  little  weakness  on  our  will,  which  time  can 
heal;  or  those  other  things  we  enter  proudly  telling 
ourselves  they  are  only  for  our  use,  experiences  we 
can  exploit  to  enrich  our  knowledge,  or  to  train  our 
will — in  every  one  of  them  Christ  tells  us  there  lies 


62  TEMPTATION 

a  power  sufficient  to  ruin  our  character,  there  lurks 
a  foe  seeking  nothing  less  than  our  life. 

I  know  nothing  more  full  of  warning  than  to 
watch  how  such  a  carelessness  or  pride  in  denying 
reality  to  evil,  is  gradually  found  out,  and  punished 
by  a  most  bitter  and  intense  conviction  of  the 
reality,  won  through  the  experience  of  servitude 
to  it.  He  who  begins  by  saying  evil  is  not  a 
reality  or  at  least  not  more  than  what  I  can  turn 
to  my  own  advantage,  and  on  these  grounds  yields 
to  its  temptation,  is  through  that  very  yielding 
drawn  to  feel  the  reality  which  he  has  denied  to  it — 
and  drawn  often  in  a  most  vigorous  and  thorough 
fashion.  For  we  all  know  the  despair  which  suc- 
cessive submissions  to  temptation  fasten  upon  the 
soul;  and  how,  yielding  to  sin,  men  fall  into  a 
state  of  mind  in  which  evil  not  only  feels  real  and 
powerful  but  indeed  more  real  than  anything  else: 
the  only  possibility  for  them,  the  only  thing  with 
any  reality  left  in  it.  One  who  had  fallen  very  far 
into  sin  wrote  thus  of  it 

*•  They  say  that  poisoned-sprinkled  flowers 
Are  sweeter  in  perfiime, 
Than  when  tintouched  by  deadly  dew 
They  glowed  in  early  bloom. 


TEMPTATION  63 

They  say  that  men  condemned  to  die 

Have  quaffed  the  sweetened  wine 
With  higher  relish  than  the  juice 

Of  the  un tampered  vine. 

And  I  believe  the  devil's  voice 

Sinks  deeper  in  our  ear 
Than  any  whisper  sent  from  Heaven, 

However  sweet  and  clear." 


Ill 

We  have  looked  at  two  of  the  agents  in  Tempta- 
tion: God  and  the  power  of  evil.  But  there  is  a 
third:  the  tempted  man  himself.  I  do  not  mean 
that  there  are  three  personages  in  the  drama;  of 
whom  God  and  the  devil  set  the  problem,  and  man 
has  got  to  solve  it.  But  I  mean  that  all  three  have 
the  setting  of  the  problem:  that  man  himself,  has 
in  his  own  degree,  the  determining  of  his  tempta- 
tion; that  to,  what  may  be  deliberately  called,  an 
awful  extent  each  of  us  is  his  own  tempter. 

We  see  this  very  plainly  even  in  the  case  of  our 
Lord,  but  not  so  much  in  what  His  temptations  were 
as  in  what  they  were  not.  Our  Lord's  temptations 
were  very  evidently  His  own,  not  only  arising  out  of 
His  calling  and  endowment  as  the  Messiah  of  God, 
but  determined  in  the  form  they  took  by  the  very 


64  TEMPTATION 

faithfulness  with  which  He  has  pursued  that  calling. 
They  were  conditioned  by  His  consciousness  of  His 
powers,  and  were  planned  by  the  Tempter  to  meet 
the  purpose  to  which  He  had  devoted  these. 

But  see  also  what  they  did  not  include,  and  how 
much  they  left  out.  Remember  that  these  three 
experiences  in  the  wilderness  were  not  isolated 
moments  of  temptation,  but  typical  of  the  whole 
prbcess  of  temptation  to  which  our  Lord  was  sub- 
jected up  to  His  final  victory  in  Gethsemane,  up  to 
His  final  patience  on  the  cross:  the  temptation  to 
be  rid  of  the  famine  and  pain  to  which  He  was 
subject  as  having  taken  our  flesh;  the  temptation, 
pressed  upon  Him  by  the  Jews  and  by  even  His 
own  disciples  to  use  the  powers  of  this  world  in 
prevailing  with  men;  and  the  temptation  to  rely 
altogether  on  the  miraculous  powers  with  which  He 
was  endowed.  Yet  summary  and  inclusive  of  all 
our  Lord's  experience  as  these  three  forms  of 
temptation  were,  do  they  include  all  kinds  of 
temptation  which  are  rife  among  men,  and  even 
among  the  best  of  men?  By  no  means.  It  is 
true  that  we  are  told  that  our  Lord  was  tempted 
in  all  points  like  as  we  are.  Yet  a  little  considera- 
tion must  show  us  that  the  words,  in  all  points. 


TEMPTATION  6$ 

arc  to  be  interpreted  not  of  the  different  shapes 
which  Temptation  has  assumed  to  the  desires  of 
men  but  of  the  different  rigors  of  pain  and  loneli- 
ness which  the  human  heart  is  appointed  to  suffer 
under  Temptation.  And,  indeed,  the  text  I  have 
quoted  in  its  addition  yet  without  sin  itself  shows 
that  from  certain  of  the  moral  struggles,  to  which 
by  our  sinfulness  we  are  subject,  our  Lord  was  free. 
No  temptations  pursued  Him  which  were  penal,  or 
due  to  the  consequences  of  previous  indulgence. 
And,  apart  from  this,  it  is  simply  impossible  for  us 
to  think  of  our  Lord  as  constrained  by  the  ignobler 
shapes  of  temptation  which  harass  other  men  and 
are  even  recorded  in  the  experience  of  the  saints: 
temptations  for  example  that  proceed  from  a  love  of 
money  for  its  own  sake  or  the  baser  passions. 
Christ  Himself,  it  is  clear,  made  many  temptations 
impossible  for  Him  and  determined  the  character  of 
those  which  actually  beset  Him. 

To  some  extent,  we  also  have  that  Power.  It 
is  inevitable  that  Temptations  come,  but  every  one 
of  us  has  it  largely  within  his  will  to  say  what  his 
temptations  shall  be:  to  determine  by  his  conduct 
of  to-day  what  form  the  temptations  of  to-morrow 
shall  assume.    Every   stage  of  our  life  sets   the 


66  TEMPTATION 

problems  of  the  stage  which  follows  it,  and  our 
behaviour  in  youth  settles  how  much  our  manhood 
is  to  be  harassed  and  distracted  from  the  duties 
which  await  it. 

For  temptations,  broadly  speaking,  are  of  two 
kinds.  They  may  as  I  have  hinted  be  little  short 
of  penal;  pursuing  us  from  our  past,  the  results 
of  old  indulgences,  and  never  coming  upon  us  but 
with  that  added  force  to  them,  and  weakness  to  us, 
which  springs  from  the  recollection  of  our  former 
defeats  by  them.  Or  like  Christ's  they  may  be  not 
punishments  but  discoveries,  opportunities  and 
tests:  the  vision  to  us  of  our  greatness,  that  two 
worlds  are  in  contest  for  our  souls;  the  proof  that 
we  are  trusted  and  called  of  God;  the  Obligation 
to  some  higher  task;  the  signals  of  a  growing 
and  a  destined  nature. 

And  each  of  us  has  it  in  his  power  to  determine 
at  least  in  what  proportion  these  two  kinds  of 
temptation  will  be  mingled  in  his  experience. 

I  speak  frankly  to  young  men.  You  have  now 
the  temptations  of  your  manhood  in  your  own 
power.  Manhood  is  coming  to  you  with  its  dis- 
covery of  destiny  and  a  vocation;  with  its  clear 
issues  and  responsibilities;  with  its  summons  to  a 


TEMPTATION  67 

warfare,  beyond  that  of  your  own  character,  in  the 
great  crusades  of  Christ.  To-day  you  have  it  in 
your  power  to  determine  whether  you  will  meet 
these  crises  with  the  full  resources  of  your  nature: 
whether  these  great  issues  will  come  to  you  as  they 
came  to  Jesus,  with  no  shame  to  fill  your  heart,  no 
terror,  no  recollection  of  former  betrayals  on  your 
part,  and  no  irredeemable  compromises  with  the 
world;  or  whether  you  must  face  them  distracted, 
hampered  and  abashed  by  the  self-indulgence  or  the 
meanness  of  the  years  through  which  you  now  move. 
Aim  to  keep  yourselves,  as  He  did  through  the 
years  of  His  obscurity,  in  obedience,  meekness  and 
prayer;  and  life  for  you  will  be  ever  opening  to 
nobler  and  still  nobler  issues.  Trials  will  come 
to  you  not  less  rigorous  and  not  less  painful,  but 
they  will  always  be  clean,  honourable  and  bracing. 
Though  you  will  not  feel  the  power  of  evil  less 
you  must  feel  the  presence  of  God  more.  The 
sense  of  danger  will  yield  to  that  of  responsibility, 
honour  take  the  place  of  fear,  and  the  horror  of 
forsakenness  magically  change  to  the  faith  of  being 
trusted  and  called.  There  will  always  be  indeed 
that  feeling  of  loneliness,  which  inseparable  from 
the  narrow   ways  of  decision,   where  men   must 


68  TEMPTATION 

walk  one  by  one.  But  it  will  be  a  loneliness,  loud 
as  Christ's  wilderness  was  with  the  Word  of  God, 
and  you  will  know  the  meaning  of  that  wonderful 
phrase  the  fellowship  of  His  sufferings.  St.  Paul 
puts  this  after,  and  not  before,  the  knowledge  of 
the  power  of  His  resurrection:  That  I  may  knozv 
Him  and  the  power  of  His  resurrection  and  the 
fellowship  of  His  sufferings}  For  he  means 
the  temptations  which  come  to  a  soul  who 
has  diligently,  in  the  power  of  its  Lord,  sought 
the  things  that  are  above,  and  lived  by  faith, 
obedience  and  aspiration.  To  such  a  soul 
temptation  must  be  suffering  still,  and,  if  God 
wills  it,  agony,  as  it  was  to  Christ  till  the  very 
end.  But  it  shall  be  the  fellowship  of  Christ's 
sufferings,  a  temptation  though  with  pain  yet  with 
power:  unmixed  with  shame  or  fear;  but  full  of 
resource  and  the  sense  of  trust;  and  as  certain  as 
Christ's  of  victory. 

Keep  near  Him  and  your  temptations  will  be  of 
such  a  sort.  You  will  be  able  to  take  them  as 
signs  not  that  evil  is  hunting  you  down,  but  that 
God  Himself  is  calling  you  on;  and  that  Christ  is 
by  your  side,  your  unfailing  brother  and  comrade. 

1  Philippians  iii.  lo. 


IV 

OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE   IN  PRAYER 

And  it  came  to  pass,  as  He  was  praying  in  a  certain  place,  that, 
when  He  ceased,  one  of  His  disciples  said  unto  Him, 
Lord,  teach  us  to  pray,  even  as  John  also  taught  hit 
disciples. — Luki  xi.  i . 

T\R'  SAMUEL  JOHNSON  once  observed 
'^^  that  "  to  reason  philosophically  on  the 
nature  of  Prayer  was  very  unprofitable."  He 
may  have  meant  that  Prayer  is  so  practical 
— at  once  so  obvious  a  need,  so  sensible  a 
relief,  and  so  proved  an  instrument — that  any 
reasoned  defence  of  it  is  unnecessary.  More 
probably  he  was  expressing  the  conviction,  that  if 
a  man  feel  no  instinct,  no  inner  urgency  to  pray, 
mere  argument  shall  never  draw  him  near  it.  After 
all  there  is  but  one  external  attraction  to  Prayer ; 
and  that  is  example.  Where  the  wisest  may  fail 
to  argue  us  into  the  practice  of  it,  the  sight  of  a 


70  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

wise  and  a  strong  man  upon  his  knees  starts  in  us 
some  impulse  to  learn  his  secret,  and  may  in  the  end 
draw  us  down  by  his  side. 

Now,  thank  God,  the  high  places  of  our  national 
history  bear  many  such  examples.  Put  aside 
priests,  ministers,  all  whose  professional  duty  it  is 
to  lead  their  fellows  in  prayer,  and  take  men  of 
action,  business  and  affairs.  Take  men  of  the 
world,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  like  Sir  Walter 
Scott ;  heroes  of  literature  like  Scott  and  Johnson 
himself;  men  of  research  like  Clerk  Maxwell  or 
Faraday  ;  statesmen  like  Lincoln  or  Gladstone ;  or 
soldiers  like  Gordon  and  that  group  of  soldiers  and 
rulers,  whom  India  trained  to  greatness  in  the  early 
years  of  our  late  Queen's  reign  ^ :  Conolly  and 
Stoddart,  the  martyrs  of  Bokhara,  the  Lawrences, 
Edwardes,  Havelock  and  many  another:  all  of 
them  men  whom  constant  duty  and  much  experi- 
ence of  danger  had  taught  to  be  very  jealous  in 
their  choice  of  the  weapons  of  life.  That  they 
believed  in  prayer  and  used  it,  means  that  they 
had  the  secret  of  making  it  play  a  strong  part  in 

*  The  lives  of  many  of  these  will  be  found  in  a  book,  which 
is  too  little  used  by,  or  for,  the  youth  of  this  generation — Sir 
John  Kaye*s  Lives  of  Indian  Officers, 


IN   PRAYER  71 

their  sincere  and  strenuous  lives.  To  them 
prayer  was  real,  practical,  indispensable ;  and 
their  example,  I  repeat,  at  least  prompts  us  to 
ask  how  they  found  it  so;  and  what  was  their 
secret  ? 

I  believe  that  we  shall  learn  that  secret  best  by 
seeking  where  they  sought  it ;  in  the  life  of  Christ 
Himself.  In  His  case  also,  as  our  text  tells  us,  it 
was  example  which  told :  It  came  to  pasSy  as  He 
was  pray  in  gy  that  one  of  His  disciples  said  unto 
Hiniy  Lord  teach  us  to  pray.  Let  us  look  then  at 
the  Example  of  our  Lord  in  Prayer. 

We  shall  see  that  this  consisted  mainly  in  three 
phases  of  His  practice  of  prayer;  one  of  which 
gives  us  the  underlying  reason  and  motive  of 
prayer,  that  God  is  our  Father ;  and  the  other  two 
the  practical  meaning  of  prayer :  that  it  is,  on  one 
side  the  real  moral  battle  of  life,  and  on  the  other 
the  renewed  enlistment  and  consecration  of  our 
wills  to  that  warfare. 

But  before  we  take  up  these  three  aspects  of  our 
Lord's  example,  we  ought  to  remember  that  we 
have  one  motive  and  duty  in  Prayer  in  which  our 
Lord  cannot  be  our  example.  He  who  included  all 
men  under  sin,  and  taught  them  to  pray,  confessing 


72  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

their  guilt  and  beseeching  pardon,  never  for  Him- 
self used  the  language  of  confession.  Christ  felt 
the  burden  of  sin  as  neither  the  best  nor  the  worst 
of  us  ever  felt  it,  but  this  was  the  sin  of  the  world 
and  not  His  own.  Which  of  us,  however,  needs 
an  example  here  ?  If  we  are  alive  and  awake  and 
dealing  honestly  with  ourselves,  there  is  not  one  of 
us,  but  day  by  day  must  feel  himself  bowed  to  his 
knees  before  God  with  the  conscience  of  his  guilt, 
and  the  need  to  pray  for  pardon.  //  any  man  say 
that  he  has  no  sin  he  deceiveth  himself  and  the 
truth  is  not  in  him. 


The  first  point  of  our  Lord's  Example  in  Prayer 
is  that  He  based  all  Prayer  on  the  Fatherhood  of 
God. 

The  Gospels  give  us  many  of  the  prayers  of 
Jesus;  and  I  think  I  am  right  when  I  say  that 
there  is  not  one  which  fails  to  address  God  as  the 
Father.  Again,  when  He  gave  His  disciples  the 
Model  Prayer  He  taught  them  to  begin  by  saying. 
Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven ;  and  when  He 
strove  to  show  them  what  Prayer  is.  He  drew  His 
illustrations  from  earthly  fathers  and  children.     So 


IN   PRAYER  73 

with  His  Apostle  Paul,  who  bowed  his  knees  unto 
the  Fathefy  of  whom  every  family  in  Heaven 
and  earth  is  named  ;^  and  to  whom  the  Spirit 
of  Prayer  which  Himself  maketh  interces- 
sion for  us  was  the  Spirit  of  adoption 
whereby  we  cry  Abba  Father.^  And  so  with 
John,  for  when  he  writes  the  following  words  of 
prayer  to  God,  it  is  after  he  has  set  God  before  us 
as  the  Father :  And  this  is  the  boldness  which  we 
have  toward  Him,  that  if  we  ask  anything  accord- 
ing to  His  will  he  heareth  us.^ 

In  this  very  simple  and  obvious  reason  for 
prayer  we  find  our  answer  to  all  the  intellectual 
objections  which  are  usually  brought  against  it. 
You  know  the  fashion  of  them.  One  has  heard 
them  from  secularist  platforms,  from  philosophic 
writings,  or  oftener,  I  dare  to  say,  rising  as  ques- 
tions from  the  restlessness  of  our  own  minds. 
Such  as — What  is  the  use  of  telling  One,  who 
knoweth  all  things,  what  He  knows  already  .f* 
What  is  the  use  of  laying  before  the  All  Merciful, 
who  must  have  anticipated  them,  our  needs  and  our 
troubles?     What  is  the  use  of  seeking  to  change 

'Ephesiant  iii.  14.  'Romans  Wii.  26,  15. 

•  I  John  V.  14, 


74  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

the  will  and  purpose  of  the  Most  Wise  ?  And  so 
forth.  I  need  not  multiply  instances,  for  our  own 
hearts,  as  I  say,  frequently  suggest  them  with  a 
cogency,  no  other's  voice  can  imitate.  Well,  all 
such  objections  to  Prayer  are  at  once  met,  over- 
thrown and  dissipated  by  the  faith  that  God  is  our 
Father.  For  (as  Christ  has  shown  in  the  chapter 
from  which  our  text  is  taken)  just  as  natural  as  it  is 
for  our  children  to  come  to  us  with  their  wants, 
their  troubles  and  their  tasks,  with  their  plans  and 
hopes,  with  their  wonder  and  perplexities;  so 
natural  is  it  for  us  to  pour  out  our  hearts  to  the 
Father  of  our  spirits  with  the  full  tale  of  all  we 
suffer,  hope  and  dare.  Prayer  is  not  the  effort  to 
tell  our  God  what  He  must  know  already.  Prayer 
is  not  the  presumption  that  He  does  not  feel  for  us 
far  more  than  even  we  feel  for  ourselves.  Prayer 
is  not  the  attempt  to  change  His  wise  and  loving 
will.  On  the  contrary.  Prayer  is  the  unburdening 
of  our  heavy  hearts  where  we  know  they  have  been 
fully  anticipated  by  the  yearnings  of  an  infinite 
compassion  ;  the  laying  of  our  perplexities  towards 
a  Light  which  we  know  must  arise  upon  them,  and 
till  it  comes,  will  send  peace  that  they  may  be 
borne ;  the  lifting  of  our  sin  to  a  Love,  which  wc 


IN   PRAYER  75 

know  seeks  to  pardon  us,  and  whose  pardon  is 
therefore  our  most  just,  as  it  is  our  most  eager, 
hope ;  the  struggle  of  our  will  to  be  one  with  His 
will  and  of  our  mind  to  enter  into  His  mind.  That 
is  Prayer — not  the  asking  of  our  own  way  but  of 
His.  Prayer  is  penitence,  confession,  aspiration, 
resignation ;  the  converse  of  our  hearts  with  the 
Father;  the  discipline  of  our  wills  to  His  will; 
the  sincere  and  strenuous  approach  of  our  minds  to 
the  mysteries  of  His.  Nothing  can  keep  us  back 
from  it,  or  shed  a  doubt  upon  its  reality,  if  we 
believe  that  we  are  His  children  and  He  our 
Father. 

And  if  Prayer  be  thus  the  fatherward  attitude 
of  the  heart,  we  understand  what  Paul  meant  when 
he  said,  Pray  without  ceasing.  For  not  only  where 
no  word  is  uttered,  but  even  where  thought  is  not 
articulate  and  there  is  no  direct  consciousness  of 
His  presence — nay  (we  may  dare  to  say)  even 
where  the  heart  is  not  sure  of  Him  and  errors 
blind  it ;  if  only  we  live  our  lives  in  patience,  if  we 
hold  them  to  duty,  if  wc  lay  them  open  to  truth 
and  are  vigilant  against  evil,  we  may  make  them 
one  long  unceasing  prayer.  Not  every  one  that 
saith  unto  me.  Lor  J,  Lord^  shall  enter  into  the 


76  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

kingdom  of  Heaven ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of 
my  Father  which  is  in  Heaven} 

All  this  is  simple  and  obvious.  But  the  other 
two  sides  of  our  Lord's  example  in  Prayer  arc  not 
so  generally  noticed  or  appreciated  by  us. 

11 

Besides  interpreting  Prayer  as  the  approach  to 
the  Father,  Jesus  made  it  the  real  battle  of  life. 
I  do  not  mean  the  mere  preparation  or  discipline 
for  the  battle,^  but  the  battlefield  and  the  battle 
itself. 

Perhaps  we  shall  best  appreciate  this  use  of 
Prayer  by  our  Lord  if  we  put  to  ourselves  the 
following  question.  In  our  Lord's  life  on  earth, 
what  were  the  quietest  moments,  and  on  the  other 
hand  what  were  the  moments  most  full  of  effort, 
trouble  and  strife.? 

The  first  answer,  I  suppose,  to  occur  to  most  of 
us,  would  be  that  the  quietest  moments  of  our 
Lord's  life  on  earth  were  those  which  He  spent 
alone  in  communion  with  His  Father  in  Heaven ; 
and  the  moments  most  full  of  strife  and  trouble 

*Matt.  vii.  21. 

*  As,  for  instance,  the  SalTation  Armj  call  Prater,  Knee-Drill. 


IN   PRAYER  77 

were  those  He  spent  in  the  exhausting  work  of 
healing  the  sick  bodies  and  minds  of  the  multi- 
tude— of  one  of  which  He  said  Virtue  is  gone  out 
of  me ;  in  the  heavy  task  of  lifting  His  dull 
disciples*  minds  to  the  purposes  of  God  ;  in  debate 
with  His  keen  and  urgent  enemies ;  and  in  His 
encounter,  at  the  last,  with  the  powers  of  this 
world.  Such  an  answer  would,  I  say,  probably  be 
the  readiest  to  spring  to  our  minds,  and  it  would 
appear  at  first  very  plausible.  Nevertheless  it  is 
the  exact  opposite  of  the  facts  of  the  case. 

The  Gospels  have  given  us  several  glimpses  into 
our  Lord's  moments  of  prayer.  And  so  far  from 
finding  them  filled  with  peace,  we  discern  in  many 
of  them  effort,  struggle  and  even  agony.  He 
who  did  His  wonderful  works  with  a  word  or  even 
only  a  gesture,  lifted  His  heart  to  the  Father  on 
His  way  to  them  with  pain  and  trouble.  He 
came  to  the  grave  of  Lazarus  with  prayer  (for  He 
said,  when  He  had  come.  Father,  I  thank  Thee  that 
Thou  hear de St  me),  and  during  that  prayer  He 
groaned  in  the  Spirit  and  troubled  Himself,  and 
again  groaning  in  Himself  He  cometh  to  the 
tomb}    Again,  when  the  Greeks  sought  Him  at 

*John  xi.  33,  38,41, 


7»  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

'the  Feast,  and  He  lifted  His  soul  in  prayer  to  the 
Father  He  said,  Now  is  my  soul  troubled ;  and  what 
shall  I  sayf  Father^  save  me  from  this  hour:  hut 
for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour.  Father, 
glorify  thy  name}  And  at  the  last,  in  the  night 
time,  in  the  garden,  under  the  trees,  when  He  went 
forward  without  His  disciples,  He  kneeled  down 
and  prayed,  saying.  Father,  if  Thou  he  willing, 
remove  this  cup  from  me:  nevertheless  not  my  will, 
hut  Thine,  he  done.  And  being  in  an  agony  He 
prayed  more  earnestly ;  and  His  sweat  became  as 
it  were  great  drops  of  blood  falling  down  upon 
the  ground.^  That  these  were  not  solitary  occa- 
sions, but  that  such  was  our  Lord's  prevailing 
temper  in  prayer,  we  learn  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  which  tells  us^  that  in  the  days  of  His 
flesh.  He  offered  up  prayers  and  supplications  with 
strong  crying  and  tears. 

Now  it  was  just  because  our  Lord  made  Prayer 
the  real  battlefield  of  life,  and  there  won  His  vic- 
tory, that  through  the  rest  of  His  days  below  He 
moved  as  one  who  is  already  conqueror,  and 
waits  but  to  gather  the  spoils  of  His  triumph : 
achieving  His  miracles  with  (as  I  have  said)  a  word 
*John  xii.  27,  28.         *Luke  xxii.  42,  44.         *T.  7. 


IN    PRAYER  79 

or  a  gesture ;  turning  His  enemies  in  their  con- 
troversy with  a  sentence ;  bearing  in  peace  the 
contradiction  of  sinners  against  Himself;  and  at 
the  last  facing  the  majesty  of  Rome  with  the 
utterance :  Thou  wouldest  have  no  power  against 
me  except  it  were  given  thee  from  above} 
Look  at  these  two  pictures  separated  by  only 
a  few  hours:  the  struggle  in  the  night  time, 
in  the  garden  under  the  trees,  alone  with  the 
Father;  the  peace,  the  air  of  victory  in  the 
morning,  in  the  sunshine,  before  the  crowds  and 
all  the  might  of  Rome  itself! 

Some  few  in  our  day  have  learned  this  habit  of 
our  Lord — to  make  prayer  the  real  battle  of  life. 
I  think  especially  of  General  Gordon,  a  soul  who 
by  many  ways  entered  into  the  secret  of  his  Lord 
and  by  none  more  than  this.  I  have  heard  that 
he  said  more  than  once :  "  I  had  a  hard  half  hour 
this  morning  hewing  Agag  in  pieces  before  the 
Lord."  In  his  Letters  to  his  Sister  published  after 
his  death.  General  Gordon's  spiritual  life  is  very 
fully  disclosed.  Now  among  those  letters  we  find  a 
number  of  phrases  like  the  following  :  "  Just  before 
I  left  I  told  you  about  Agag ;"  "  the  only  way  to 
^  John  ziz*  1 1. 


8o  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

fight  Anak  is  to  keep  in   union  with   God   in 
Christ ;"    "  my  constant  prayer  is  against  Agag, 
who  of  course  is  here  and  as  insinuating  as  ever ;" 
and   so   forth.     Now,   Agag   was   no   Chinaman, 
nor  Turkish  pasha  nor  Soudanese  slave-driver; 
nor  any  of  those  foes  of  flesh  and  blood  against 
whom  Gordon  carved  out  his  great  career ;    but 
just  that  old  and  evil  self  in  meeting  and  over- 
coming which  consists  the  duty,   the  appointed 
warfare,  the  sanctification  and  growth  of  character, 
of  every  one  of  us.     "  Agag — catering  for  notice 
and  praise,  *  Look  what  I  have  done.'  "     And  it 
was  just   because   Gordon    had   thus   discovered 
his    Lord's    secret    of    making    prayer    the    real 
battlefield    of    life,    that    through    the    rest    of 
his    deeds    he    moved    with    something    of    his 
Master's  spirit  of  victory  and  peace  upon  him ; 
walking    up,    as    we    are    told    he    did    in    the 
Chinese  war,  to  the  cannon's  mouth  with  only  a 
rattan  in  his  hand ;  ready  at  the  call  of  duty  to  go 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth  on  a  moment's  notice; 
and   at    the   last   alone,    forsaken,    destitute,    yet 
laying    down    his   life   without    fear,    before    the 
howling  mob  of  his  murderers. 

Have  we  learned  this  secret  of  Christ — that 


IN    PRAYER  8 1 

Prayer  is,  not  the  mere  preparation  or  discipline 
for  the  conflict,  but  the  conflict  and  the  struggle 
itself  ?  Is  it  not  rather,  because  we  have  failed 
to  understand  this,  because  we  have  not  seen 
nor  exercised  the  practical  possibilities  which  lie 
in  prayer,  when  thus  regarded,  that  our  belief  in 
it  and  our  practice  of  it  are  so  wavering  and  unreal  ? 
Why  have  most  men  and  women  who  have  given 
up  regular  prayer — and  their  number  is  perhaps 
greater  than  we  have  any  idea  of — why  have 
they  done  so?  And  why  have  we  who  are 
Christians  so  little  faith  and  constancy  in  Prayer? 
For  this  reason,  that  we  ignore  the  meaning  Christ 
put  into  it,  and  fail  to  see  how  critical  it  is ;  and 
how  practical  and  full  of  moral  potency  it  may  be 
made.  I  do  not  believe  that  many  men  and 
women  cease  to  pray  because  of  intellectual 
reasons,  or  that  in  every  case  the  cause  of  their 
neglect  is  the  consciousness  of  some  cherished 
sin,  without  throwing  away  which  they  recognise 
that  prayer  for  them  would  be  insincere  and 
useless.  Some  may  cease  to  pray  from  such 
motives ;  but  I  believe  that  a  great  majority  slide 
into  prayerlessness  by  ways  far  less  conscious  and 
thoughtful.      Other  earnest   things  in  life  have 


82  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

risen  before  them  and  robbed  this  of  its  earnest- 
ness. The  intensity  of  it,  the  practical  and  serious 
nature  of  it,  has  dwindled  before  the  appearance 
of  other  duties  and  other  tests  in  their  experience. 
For  I  suppose  that  in  this  Christian  land  we  have 
all  been  brought  up  to  pray,  and  have  kept  to  the 
habit  through  our  childhood.  Nor  is  it  when  we 
first  leave  home  and  go  out  into  the  world  that 
we  leave  it  behind.  Prayer  is  often  the  only 
bit  of  home  and  childhood  which  we  can  carry  with 
us,  and  therefore  for  a  time  a  young  man  will 
cling  the  more  passionately  to  it ;  and  the  habit 
may  even  assume  a  charm  he  never  felt  while 
sheltered  and  cared  for.  But  then  other  duties 
and  responsibilities  descend,  and  seem  to  draw  the 
earnestness  out  of  this  one :  college-tasks,  busi- 
ness, serious  intellectual  problems,  or  the  burdens 
of  service  to  other  lives.  If  we  are  honest  and 
have  a  work  to  do,  those  will  be  the  first  things 
we  think  of  when  we  wake.  We  will  be  eager 
to  get  at  them,  and  anything  that  comes  in  the  way 
may  grow  to  be  felt  as  a  delay  and  interruption  to 
our  duty.  From  such  experiences  there  is  no- 
thing which  suffers  more  than  Prayer;  nothing 
which  men  are  so  plausibly  tempted  by  the  serious- 


IN    PRAYER  83 

ness  of  life  to  regard  as  in  comparison  a  mere 
formality,  or  at  most  a  dispensable  luxury.  And 
so  they  come  to  hurry  over  it,  or  to  omit  it 
altogether,  that  they  may  get  to  the  work  of  which 
their  minds  are  rightly  full. 

All  that  looks  honest  and  plausible,  but  it  is 
fatally  wrong.  He  who  faces  his  life — who  faces 
one  day  of  life — without  prayer  shall  be  like  one 
who  fights  with  an  unbeaten  foe  on  his  rear  as 
well  as  in  front  of  him.  But  he  who  follows  his 
Lord  and,  making  Prayer  the  real  battlefield  of  his 
life,  overcomes  there  his  passions,  his  fears,  his 
entanglements  with  evil  and  the  other  tempta- 
tions that  beset  him,  shall  move  like  his  Lord 
unencumbered  and  unharassed  to  the  nobler  issues 
of  life,  and  achieve  them,  in  choice  and  deed,  simply 
and  easily. 

Do  not  think  that  in  all  this  I  am  pressing  upon 
you  anything  sensational  or  exaggerated ;  any- 
thing that  is  beyond  your  daily  duty  or  the  needs 
of  your  daily  health.  You  know,  if  you  are 
awake,  what  is  in  front  of  you:  what  calls,  what 
burdens,  what  possible  bearing  of  pain  and  disap- 
pointment. You  know  what  distractions  are 
certain  to  come  in  your  way  towards  these ;   what 


84  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

besetting  sins  you  have;  what  temptations  are 
ready  to  harass  and  weaken  you.  Give  yourself 
a  little  time  to  realise  these  alone  with  God. 
Summon  them  to  His  Presence ;  summon  them 
by  their  right  names.  Consider  their  severity, 
their  danger,  the  power  of  death  to  your  character, 
which  lies  in  them.  Lay  to  your  heart,  as  Christ 
did,  the  awful  difficulty  of  doing  your  Father's 
will  in  face  of  them.  And  then  in  the  full  sense 
of  all  this,  grapple  with  their  power  over  you. 
Resolve  to  overcome  them ;  and  by  Christ's  own 
promise  you  shall  overcome  them  then  and  there ; 
and  you  shall  move  through  the  rest  of  your  life, 
not  untempted  indeed,  but  unencumbered  by 
the  baser  and  more  irritating  of  such  enemies, 
and  with  much  of  your  Master's  peace  and  power 
about  you. 

Ill 

But  our  warfare  is  not  finished  by  one  victory. 
Through  life  our  warfare  is  endless,  and  every 
victory  requires  a  new  enlistment  and  consecration 
of  our  wills  to  His  service.  It  is  in  this  that  the 
third  aspect  of  our  Lord's  Example  in  Prayer 
consists. 


IN   PRAYER  85 

In  the  First  Chapter  of  Mark's  Gospel  we  read 
that  our  Lord  spent  a  Sabbath  day  at  Capernaum 
in  teaching  and  healing.     I  have  already  asked 
you  to  remember  the  strain  which  such  work  put 
upon  Him ;   how  much  of  Himself  He  spent  in 
curing  diseased  bodies  and  minds ;  how  with  every 
single  case  virtue  went  out  of  Him,      And  we 
are    to    remember,    also,    that    this    particularly 
exhausting  day,  when  all  the  city  was  gathered  to 
His  door^  and  they  brought  unto  Him  all  that  were 
sick  and  them  that  were  possessed  with  devils^  was 
spent  by  our  Lord — like  so  much  of  His  ministry 
— in    a    sultry    and    enervating    climate,    at    the 
bottom  of  that  deep  trench,  in  which  the  Sea  of 
Galilee  lies  nearly  seven  hundred  feet  below  the 
level  of  the  Ocean.     Yet  after  such  a  day  in  such  a 
place,  our  Lord  did  not  pass  the  whole  of  the 
following  night  in  sleep ;    but  in  the  morning  a 
great  while  before  day,  He  rose  up  and  went  out, 
and  departed  into  a  desert  place,  and  there  prayed. 
That  is,  our  Lord  not  only  made  prayer  the  battle- 
field  of   life,    but   when    the   victory   came   He 
followed  it  up  with  renewed   prayer  and  com- 
munion with  His  Father.     Every  fresh  achieve- 
ment of  power   He   made  a  fresh   occasion   for 


86  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

enlistment  to  the  struggle  before  Him.  Every 
summit  to  which  His  Father  lifted  Him,  He  used 
as  an  altar  for  another  consecration  of  Himself 
to  the  Father's  service. 

It  is  probably  owing  to  our  neglect  of  this  part 
of  our  Lord's  example  in  prayer,  that  we  suffer  in 
our  moral  lives  from  so  much  fickleness,  declension 
and  disappointment ;  that  our  characters  do  not 
steadily  progress;  and  that  in  particular,  on  the 
back  of  so  many  victories  or  attainments,  we  so 
often  and  so  suddenly  suffer  from  falls  and  defeats ; 
or  at  least,  to  our  disheartening,  find  ourselves 
assailed  by  many  temptations  which  we  believed 
we  had  overcome  once  for  all.  We  have  forgotten 
the  need  for  renewed  devotion. 

Disbanded  soldiers  make  dangerous  citizens ; 
and  a  regiment  which  has  proved  itself  strong  on 
a  foreign  field  and  in  face  of  the  enemy,  has  some- 
times been  known  on  its  return  home  to  give  way 
to  disorder  and  disgraceful  excess.  Now  each  of 
us  is  a  little  company  of  faculties  and  affections ; 
which,  so  long  as  danger  confronts  them  and  duty 
takes  the  aspect  of  serious  battle,  hold  together 
firm  and  vigilant  against  the  foe.  So  long  as 
the  excitement  of  the  conflict  is  upon  them  they 


IN    PRAYER  87 

amply  prove  their  value  and  feithflilness ;  but  when 
the  strain  relaxes  they  tend  to  scatter  upon  lower 
aims  and  even  involve  us  in  disgrace.  Each  of 
us  must  be  able  to  look  back  upon  some  experi- 
ences of  this  kind,  which  ought  to  make  him  feel 
the  need  of  following  his  Lord's  example  in  using 
every  attainment  or  victory,  to  which  he  has 
been  lifted,  as  an  occasion  for  fresh  consecration 
of  himself  to  God's  service. 

I  remember  some  years  ago  climbing  the 
Weisshorn,  above  the  Zermatt  Valley,  with  two 
guides.  There  had  been  a  series  of  severe  storms, 
and  ours  was  the  first  ascent  for  some  weeks. 
Consequently  we  had  a  great  deal  of  step-cutting 
to  do  up  the  main  arite.  We  had  left  the  cabin 
at  two  in  the  morning,  and  it  was  nearly  nine 
before  we  reached  the  summit,  which  consisted,  as 
on  so  many  peaks  in  the  Alps,  of  splintered  rocks 
protruding  from  the  snow.  My  leading  guide 
stood  aside  to  let  me  be  first  on  the  top.  And  I, 
with  the  long  labour  of  the  climb  over,  and 
exhilarated  by  the  thought  of  the  great  view 
awaiting  me,  but  forgetful  of  the  high  gale  that 
was  blowing  on  the  other  side  of  the  rocks,  sprang 
eagerly  up  them,  and  stood  erect  to  sec  the  view. 


88  OUR  LORD'S  EXAMPLE 

The  guide  pulled  me  down — "  On  your  knees, 
Sir ;  you  are  not  safe  there  except  on  your  knees." 
My  young  friends,  God  lifts  us  all  to  summits 
in  life ;  high,  splendid  and  perilous.  But  these 
arc  nowhere  more  splendid  or  more  perilous  than 
in  our  youth — summits  of  knowledge,  of  friend- 
ship, of  love,  of  success.  Let  us,  as  we  value  our 
moral  health,  the  growth  of  our  character  and  of 
our  fitness  for  God's  service,  use  every  one  of 
them  as  an  altar,  on  which  to  devote  ourselves 
once  more  to  His  wilL 


WHILE   YE    HAVE   THE   LIGHT 

Man  goeth  forth  unto  his  work  and  to  his  labour  until  the 
eycning. — Psalm  civ.  23. 

While  ye  have  the  Light,  believe  in  the  Light,  that  ye  may 
become  the  children  of  Light. — John  xii.  36. 

TT  was  characteristic  of  Jesus  Christ  to  declare 
-*■  Himself  to  be  the  Light,  for  practical  ends. 
Light  is  glorious  in  itself :  it  is  its  own  evidence 
and  needs  neither  herald  nor  argument.  Christ 
might  have  compared  Himself  to  Light  in  either 
of  these  respects.  But  Light  is  also  practical, 
calling  to  life  and  action,  and  it  is  clear  from  our 
Lord's  words  that  this  was  the  sense  in  which  He 
gave  Himself  the  name.  On  each  of  the  occasions 
on  which  He  used  it  He  coupled  it  with  a  distinct 
call  to  progress  or  to  labour.  1  am  the  Light  of 
the  World ;    he  that  followeth  Me  shall  not  walk 


90    WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

in  darkness.  The  night  cometh  when  no  man  can 
work ;  as  long  as  1  am  in  the  world  1  am  the 
Light  of  the  World.  Yet  a  little  while  is  the 
Light  with  you ;  walk  while  ye  have  the  Light. 

You  sec  His  meaning.  Like  the  sun  He  shines 
not  to  be  gazed  at  but  to  be  used.  To  man  He 
is  to  be  what  the  sun  is  for  movement  and  for 
work.  The  sun  ariseth  and  the  wild  beasts  get 
them  away  and  lay  them  down  in  their  dens.  Man 
goeth  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labour  till  the 
evening.  You  see  the  swift,  broad  picture.  Light 
is  the  dispersion  of  all  that  is  cruel  and  unclean. 
But  it  is  man's  opportunity.  Among  all  that  a 
sunrise  reveals — the  sea  like  a  mirror  of  gold, 
meadow  and  forest  sparkling  with  dew,  kindled 
mountain  peaks,  and  the  glory  of  heaven — nothing 
is  more  noticeable  to  this  Psalmist  than  man  going 
out  to  his  daily  work.  It  is  for  him — for  that 
common  figure,  for  that  daily  commonplace  start 
again  at  the  ordinary  tasks — that  the  universal 
miracle  has  taken  place. 

Christ  meant  not  differently  about  Himself. 
The  Light  of  the  World — think  what  it  implies. 
The  Light  in  which  all  the  space  and  all  the  life  of 
the  great  world  shall  first  appear ;   the  Light  from 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT      91 

which  everything  that  is  bestial  shall  shrink 
abashed,  in  which  everything  worthy  to  live  shall 
lift  its  head  with  new  hope ;  the  Light  in  which 
this  vast  dwelling-place  of  men  shall  be  seen  to  be 
full  of  material  and  advantage,  covered  with  paths 
of  duty  and  ways  to  truth  and  occasions  of  service ; 
the  Light  in  which  shall  appear  the  pity  of  the 
multitude  and  the  dignity  of  the  individual,  and 
men  be  aware  of  each  other's  beauty  and  each 
other's  need ;  in  which  the  disguise  and  surprise 
of  evil  shall  be  no  more  possible,  fear  and  ignorance 
vanish,  and  love  have  her  perfect  reign.  The 
Light  of  the  World  means  all  this,  but  as  in  the 
Psalm,  it  is  again  the  figure  of  man  at  work  which 
is  led  to  the  foreground ;  and  Christ  tells  us  that 
it  is  for  this  He  has  come :  Walk  while  ye  have 
the  Light ;   work  while  it  is  called  to-day. 

With  this  general  sense  of  what  Christ  meant 
when  He  called  Himself  the  Light  of  the  World 
we  come  to  our  second  text.  Our  Lord  is  still 
speaking  of  Himself.  The  Pharisees  expected  a 
Messiah,  who  should  abide  for  ever ;  but  Christ 
says  He  shall  soon  be  taken  from  them,  and  He 
adds.  While  ye  have  the  Light^  believe  in  the  Lighty 
that  ye  may   become  the  children   of  Light.     I 


92      WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

wish  to  look  with  you  at  these  three  clauses — but 
I  wish  principally  to  dwell  on  that  shortness  of  the 
opportunity  of  moral  Light,  which  the  first  ex- 
presses, and  to  be  very  brief  on  the  other  two. 


First — While  ye  have  the  Light, 

Among  the  many  resemblances,  which  exist 
between  physical  and  moral  Light,  one  of  the  most 
striking  is  that  neither  of  them  is  shed  upon  us  in 
a  constant  stream ;  but  that  both  are  intermittent 
and  periodical;  both  are  broken  up  into  seasons 
bound  by  certain  and  inexorable  darkness. 

When  in  the  beginning  God  said :  Let  there 
he  Light^  and  there  was  Lights  Light  did  not  spring 
into  undivided  empire,  but  was  ordained  to  rule 
alternately  with  darkness.  Day  and  night  abide 
for  ever.  What  was  the  reason,  so  far  as  man  is 
concerned,  for  this  curbing  and  restriction  of  so  free 
an  element  as  Light .?  The  readiest  reason  seems 
to  be — for  our  relief  and  rest.  But  that  is  not  half 
the  reason.  Our  light  is  broken  up  and  shortened, 
not  only  in  order  to  afford  us  intervals  of  rest,  but 
also  to  bestow  upon  us  intensity;  not  only  to 
relieve  our  fecultics  from  the  strain  of  life,  but  to 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT     93 

strain  and  stimulate  them  ever  the  more  keenly. 
According  to  Christ  Himself  the  night  cometh 
when  no  man  can  work,  not  merely  that  man  may 
hope  for  release  beneath  its  shelter,  but  that  he  may 
work  while  it  is  called  to-day.  Had  there  been  no 
interval,  since  first  upon  the  tones  of  God's  word 
Light  rippled  across  the  face  of  the  deep — had  the 
Sun  been  created  to  stand  still  in  the  midst  of  the 
heavens,  then  indeed  one  might  say  there  would 
have  been  no  progress  for  man.  Let  your  imagina- 
tion strike  Night  out  of  the  world,  and  you  need 
not  begin  to  speculate  on  the  iron  frames  we  men 
should  have  required  to  bear  the  unrelieved 
strain,  for  it  is  tolerably  certain  that,  without  the 
urgency  and  discipline  which  a  limited  day  brings 
upon  our  life,  we  should  never  have  been  stimu- 
lated to  enough  of  toil  to  make  us  weary.  Night, 
which  has  been  called  the  Liberator  of  the  Slave,  is 
far  more  the  taskmistress  of  the  free — a  task- 
mistress  who  does  not  scourge  nor  drive  us  in 
panic,  but  startles  our  sluggishness,  rallies  our 
wandering  thoughts,  develops  our  instincts  of 
order,  reduces  our  impulsiveness  to  methods, 
incites  us  to  our  very  best,  and  only  then  crowns 
her  beneficence  by  rewarding  our  obedience  with 


94      WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

rest.  In  short.  Night,  while  she  is  nature's  mercy 
on  our  weakness,  is  nature's  purest  discipline  for 
our  strength.  The  Psalmist  was  right :  So  teach 
us  to  number  our  days,  that  we  may  get  us  an  heart 
of  wisdom.^  Time  is  not  only  a  condition  of  our 
being ;    it  is  a  great  moral  provision. 

But  all  this  about  physical  Light  is  equally, 
though  not  so  regularly,  true  of  moral  Light.  The 
moral  heavens  have  their  night  for  each  of  us,  as 
much  as  the  physical.  Just  as  the  sun  is  always 
shining,  and  yet  each  part  of  the  world  has  its 
determined  hours  for  seeing  his  face  and  its  set 
seasons  for  rejoicing  in  his  heat ;  so  our  Father  in 
Heaven,  the  Father  of  Lights,  is  without  variable- 
ness or  shadow  of  turning,  and  yet  in  our  moral 
experience  day  and  night,  summer  and  winter,  are 
as  real  facts  as  in  the  course  of  nature. 

That  is  a  truth  of  which  Scripture  never  ceases 
reminding  us.  There  is  hardly  one  prophet  who 
does  not  proclaim  how  short  man's  day  of  work 
is — how  brief  and  single  is  the  summer  granted  to 
each  man's  character  to  ripen  in.  Sometimes  it  is 
life  as  a  whole  which  they  look  at,  and  tell  us  that  is 
our  day;  if  we  miss  it  there  is  nothing  beyond. 
»Pi.  xc.  I  a. 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT      95 

Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  doy  do  it  with  thy 
mighty  for  there  is  no  work^  nor  device^  nor  know- 
led  ge^  nor  wisdoniy  in  the  grave  whither  thou 
goest  ;^  or  again,  it  is  of  certain  parts  of  life  they 
speak,  as  of  youth  :  Remember  now  thy  Creator  in 
the  days  of  thy  youth  while  the  evil  days  come  not  ;^ 
and  again,  Give  glory  to  the  Lord  your  Gody  before 
He  cause  darknesSy  and  before  your  feet  stumble 
on  the  dark  mountains;  and  while  ye  look  for  light 
He  turn  it  into  the  shadow  of  deathy  and  make  it 
gross  darkness.^  And  you  remember  those 
frequent  phrases  which  toll  through  Scripture  like 
the  tolling  of  a  bell  that  marks  the  passing  of  a 
life.  This  is  the  day  of  the  Lord.  For  He  is  our 
Gody  to-day  if  you  will  hear  His  voice.  Now  is 
the  accepted  time  and  now  is  the  day  of  salvation. 
We  hear  of  God  offering  truth  for  a  day,  and  doing 
deliverance  in  a  day — the  day  of  the  Lord,  the  day 
of  visitationy  the  day  of  salvation. 

Now,  I  dare  say,  there  is  no  one  here  who  has 
not  been  tempted  to  imagine  that  this  way  of 
putting  the  matter  was  simply  a  rhetorical  device 
on  the  part  of  the  prophets,  a  bit  of  prophetic 
licence.  My  brothers,  look  within  yourselves, 
*Eccl.  ix.  10.       'Eccl.  liv.  i.       •Jeremiah  xiii.  16. 


96      WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

consult  your  own  moral  experience,  and  you  will 
see  that  your  imagination  is  not  correct.  So  far 
from  being  a  rhetorical  figure,  this  shortness  of  the 
day  of  grace,  this  strict  limitation  of  the  time  of 
moral  influence  is  a  certain  and  a  commonplace 
fact.  In  every  man's  moral  life  there  is  a 
to-day,  which  most  surely  becomes  an  irrevocable 
yesterday.  Like  the  body,  the  soul  is  born  into 
seasons,  but  with  this  difference,  that  while  the 
body  if  in  health  can  hardly  fail  to  respond  to  genial 
influences,  the  separate  faculties  of  the  soul  may 
miss  their  opportunity  and  sleep  through  their 
single  summer. 

That  is  true  of  our  nature  on  all  sides.  Charles 
Darwin,  by  far  the  greatest  observer  of  our  time, 
watched  other  things  than  the  habits  of  the  lower 
animals.  He  observed  himself;  and  in  the  few 
pages  of  his  autobiography  I  find  facts  as  interesting 
as  any  he  has  left  us  in  his  volumes  of  natural 
history.  Here  is  his  confirmation  of  the  truth  of 
what  we  are  studying :  "  Up  to  the  age  of  thirty 
poetry  of  many  kinds  gave  me  great  pleasure,  and 
even  as  a  schoolboy  I  took  intense  delight  in  Shake- 
speare. I  have  also  said  that  formerly  pictures 
gave  me  considerable  and  music  very  great  delight 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT      97 

But  now  for  many  years  I  cannot  endure  to  read  a 
line  of  poetry:  I  have  tried  lately  to  read 
Shakespeare,  and  found  it  so  intolerably  dull  that 
it  nauseated  me.  I  have  also  almost  lost  my  taste 
for  pictures  or  music.  If  I  had  to  live  my  life 
again  I  would  have  made  a  rule  to  read  some 
poetry  and  listen  to  some  music  at  least  once  every 
week ;  for  perhaps  the  parts  of  my  brain  now 
atrophied  would  thus  have  been  kept  active 
through  rse.  The  loss  of  these  tastes  is  a  loss  of 
happiness,  and  may  possibly  be  injurious  to  the 
intellect  and  more  probably  to  the  moral  character, 
by  enfeebling  the  emotional  part  of  our  nature." 

Brethren,  most  men  can  bear  witness  to  a  similar 
loss;  ytt  in  things  more  essential  to  the  moral 
character  than  poetry  or  pictures  or  music.  There 
is,  for  instance,  the  moral  light  which  appeals  so 
strongly  to  every  healthy  youth,  and  which  if 
unfoUowed,  unobeyed,  seems  so  irrevocably  lost — 
I  mean  the  star  of  purity.  On  how  many  a  youth 
did  that  star  shine — perhaps  from  a  firmament 
crossed  by  no  other  guide  or  harbinger  of  hope — as 
clear  as  the  star  which  drew  the  wise  men  of  the 
East  to  the  cradle  of  Christ !  But  their  skirts  were 
pulled  by  some  base  affection  ;  a  tempting  face,  the 

o 


98      WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

page  of  an  evil  book,  a  dream  of  their  own  hot 
hearts  came  between  the  star  and  their  eyes. 
They  ceased  to  follow  it.  Time  after  time  they 
turned  to  what  was  base,  till  never  again  have  they 
seen  the  star,  never  again  been  able  to  believe  that 
for  them  purity  was  possible. 

Is  it  different  in  the  case  of  some,  with  the  ideals 
of  justice,  of  honour  and  of  generosity,  which  are 
natural  to  all  in  their  youth.?  A  man  begins  his 
business  career  with  the  moral  heaven  unclouded 
above  him.  He  will  do,  he  vows  to  God,  every 
act  of  his  life  in  its  sunshine.  He  will  shape  his 
conduct  by  all  it  shows  him  of  duty,  by  all  it  puts 
into  him  of  health.  But  his  patience  fails  against 
adversity.  Clouds  come  over  his  sky — they  are 
only  the  mist  sent  up  by  his  own  weariness — and 
men  tell  him  the  heaven  he  believed  in  is  not  real  : 
that  he  has  worn  himself  out  pursuing  the  impos- 
sible. So  he  turns  from  his  ideals,  and  ignores 
them,  till  when  he  is  haunted  by  the  memory 
of  them,  and  conscience  wakes,  he  tells  himself 
they  were  a  boy's  dream.  A  boy's  dream  ?  Nay, 
the  boy's  day.  An  old  man's  dream,  if  you  like, 
for  to  him  they  are  past  and  irrecoverable.  But 
that  light  was  the  boy's  day.     He  could  have 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT     99 

grown  in  it,  worked  in  it,  found  true  friends  in  it, 
and  seen  his  way  clear  through  the  world  to  God 
and  his  everlasting  home. 

These  are  but  a  couple  of  instances  from  experi- 
ences which  few  are  without.  They  are  facts  as 
true  as  any  Darwin  records.  As  true,  but  with 
this  difference.  His  can  be  put  down  coldly  with 
pen  and  ink  before  the  eyes  of  the  world.  These 
burn  themselves  in  letters  of  fire  on  the  heart. 

You  cannot  then  say  that  those  appeals  of 
Scripture  are  mere  imagery  and  rhetoric.  For 
none  of  us  does  moral  opportunity  last  for  ever. 
For  each  of  us  these  great,  glad  words :  Ye  have 
the  light  must  be  introduced  by  a  solemn  while. 
The  night  cometh,  I  do  not  say  that  the  abused, 
the  lost.  Light  is  always  irrecoverable.  God  is 
patient :  and  Christ  is  the  power  of  God  to 
salvation.  But  even  He,  the  greatest  moral 
opportunity  of  life — that  in  which  all  others  we 
have  lost  may  be  recovered — shares  with  them  all 
their  character  of  definiteness,  of  limitation.  Light 
of  the  world  indeed  He  is,  and  in  His  unfading 
beams  the  world  shall  grow  better,  happier,  richer 
through  the  ages.  Let  there  be  but  a  handful  of 
corn  left  on  the  earth ;   with  Him  for  its  sun  the 


TOO   WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

fruit  thereof  shall  shake  like  Lebanon.  It  has 
happened  before,  and  will  happen  again.  Human- 
ity must  grow  greater  and  purer  beneath  His 
shining.    Yet  for  you  and  for  me  He  is  not  eternal. 

**  A  hundred  summers  deck  the  tree, 
But  only  one  the  leaf; 
A  thousand  summers  bless  the  lea. 
But  only  one  the  sheaf." 

Why  do  we  speak  only  of  great  men  as  having 
their  day  ?  Every  character  among  us  has  its  day. 
What  is  conspicuous  in  them,  is  equally  real  in  us. 
Christ  shall  reign  and  shine  for  ever,  but  you  and  I 
have  only  this  life  to  find  Him.  Perhaps,  young 
men  and  women,  you  have  only  your  youth. 

II 

Now  of  this  day  Christ  says :  Believe  in  it. 
Believe  in  the  Light.  That  is,  at  first  hearing,  a 
strange  word  to  use  of  Light.  And  yet  it  is  the 
fittest  to  use  even  of  that  physical  Light  which  we 
see  by  the  outward  eye.  We  do  not  look  at  the 
Sun,  for  that  would  be  to  dazzle  and  blind  us,  but 
we  use  the  Sun's  light,  we  read  the  world  as  he 
reveals  it  to  us,  we  put  the  brightness  he  brings  us 
to  some  practical  advantage.     And  that  is  just  to 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  TJiE  LIGIfr    loi 

believe  in  his  light.  Of  some  jr^eri  we  iiiuy  say 
that  they  do  not  believe  that  it  is  day,  for  they  do 
not  use  it  as  day.  They  waste  it,  not  being  really 
awake.  They  ignore  its  value:  they  do  not 
believe  in  it. 

All  this  is  much  more  true  of  moral  Light.  To 
believe  in  such  is  to  read  life  as  it  reveals  life ;  to 
take  as  evil  what  it  displays  as  evil,  to  hold  as  firm 
the  path  which  it  lights  up  before  us,  to  hold  as 
realities  and  not  as  dreams  the  ideals  which  it 
kindles  in  our  skies,  and  to  press  on  with  all  our 
hearts  to  their  pursuit  and  conquest.  To  believe 
in  the  Light  is  to  use  it ;  to  feel  that  it  has  been 
given  to  us  for  practical  purposes :  for  conduct,  for 
the  perception  of  truth,  for  the  growth  of  character. 
To  believe  in  the  Light,  I  say,  is  to  use  it;  for 
after  all  there  is  no  real  difference  between  faith 
and  work.  Faith  in  a  thing  means  faith  in  its 
practical  effectiveness:  setting  to  work  with  it, 
using  it,  rejoicing  in  it. 

And  this  was  what  Christ  meant  about  Himself. 
Read  life  as  I  show  it.  Take  for  granted  My 
explanation  of  things,  and  the  character  I  give 
them.  Use  Myself,  while  you  have  Me,  use  Me 
for  your  life. 


102  ^HILE  YEHAVE  THE  LIGHT 

riiiliive'^in  tf^e  J^ighti,,' Christ  never  uttered  a 
more  searching  or  a  more  comprehensive  word. 
Which  of  us  can  escape  the  responsibility  it  lays 
upon  us  ?  For  believing  in  the  Light  is  not  having 
correct  theories  of  it.  But  believing  in  the  Light, 
is  allowing  it  to  bear  upon  our  Life,  trusting  the 
path  it  opens,  discovering  in  it  our  duty  and  the 
heart  of  our  brother ;  using  it  to  get  on  with  our 
work  and  to  serve  one  another. 

The  beams  of  Light  which  shine  from  Christ  arc 
many.  That  the  Almighty  is  our  Father,  infinite 
in  Love ;  that  He  grants  forgiveness  and  release 
from  despair  to  all  who  truly  turn  to  Him ;  that 
holiness  is  possible,  and  virtue  can  be  victorious 
because  both  are  His  will;  that  it  is  better  for  a 
man  to  bear  anything  rather  than  to  sin ;  that  work 
is  hopeful,  and  the  doing  of  duty  neither  vain  nor 
unblest ;  that  suffering  comes  of  the  love  of  God, 
and  is  the  way  to  peace.  To  believe  in  the  Light 
is  to  believe  all  these ;  is  to  believe,  and  to  act  upon 
the  belief,  that  Christ  can  be  imitated,  does  become 
our  daily  strength,  and  is  brought  down  into  our 
hearts  and  lives  by  a  regular  and  patient  devotion 
to  Him. 


WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT    103 

III 

That  ye  may  become  children  of  Light — that 
is,  natives  of  it,  with  the  Light  in  our  hearts 
and  the  health  of  it  in  our  blood.  For  to-day  the 
most  of  us  do  not  live  our  lives  with  our  eyes  open 
and  our  hearts  pure.  Either  we  do  our  daily  duty 
in  blindfold  routine,  like  a  horse  on  the  round  of  a 
mill-path,  and  with  no  sense  of  the  meaning  or  the 
joy  of  what  we  do.  Or  else,  if  our  eyes  be  open 
and  our  hearts  keen,  and  we  desire  not  to  be 
the  blind  slaves  of  habit,  we  are  troubled  by  having 
to  turn  from  the  use  of  the  Light  to  constant 
enquiry  about  it ;  and  we  are  hindered  in  the  work 
we  have  to  do  while  it  is  yet  day,  by  having 
perpetually  to  ask  whether  it  really  be  day  after 
all. 

But  this  our  destiny,  to  which  Christ  calls  us 
through  belief  in  the  Light,  is  that  estate  in  which 
we  shall  have  burst  equally  from  the  blindness  of 
mere  habit  and  the  shadows  and  perplexities  of 
doubt;  in  which  we  shall  be  as  little  dead  to 
God  and  His  meaning  for  our  life,  as  far  from 
doubting  or  being  unconscious  of  them,  as  loving 
children  are  beyond  doubting  or  being  unconscious 


I04    WHILE  YE  HAVE  THE  LIGHT 

of  their  father.  There  shall  be  no  more  any 
mere  routine  of  virtue,  nor  any  scepticism  abou* 
it ;  but  we  shall  use  the  Light  with  open  eyes  and 
clean  hearts,  as  freely  and  Joyfully  doing  the 
Father's  will  as  Christ  Himself. 

What  a  hope  is  this,  and  how  it  brightens  the 
present  hours  of  dulness  and  hesitation!  This  is 
what  loyalty  to  the  Light  must  bring  us.  Every- 
thing hard  and  steep — it  is  a  step  towards  power. 
Everything  that  goes  against  our  present  nature — 
it  is  the  winning  of  a  new  one.  Every  act  of  trust 
in  the  Light  leads  to  knowledge,  and  every 
obedience  to  freedom.  While  ye  have  the  Lighty 
believe  in  the  Lights  that  ye  may  become  the 
children  of  Light. 


THE   TWO   WILLS 

When  He  was  accused  by  the  chief  priests  and  elders,  He 
answered  nothing.  Then  saith  Pilate  unto  Him,  Hearest 
thou  not  how  many  things  they  witness  against  Thee  ? 
And  He  gare  him  no  answer,  not  even  to  one  word ; 
insomuch  that  the  governor  marvelled  greatly.  .  .  .  Now 
the  chief  priests  and  the  elders  persuaded  the  multitude 
that  they  should  ask  for  Barabbas,  and  destroy  Jesus.  But 
the  governor  answered  and  said  unto  them.  Whether  of 
the  twain  will  ye  that  I  release  unto  you !  And  they 
said,  Barabbas.  Pilate  saith  unto  them,  What  then  shall 
I  do  unto  Jesus  which  is  called  Christ  ?  They  all  say. 
Let  Him  be  crucified.  And  he  said,  Why,  what  evil  hath 
He  done  ?  But  they  cried  out  exceedingly,  saying.  Let 
Him  be  crucified  ! — Matthew  xxvii.  iz-14,  20-Z3. 

T^TEVER  was  tragedy  so  awful  or  so  swift  as 
-^^  that  which  St.  Matthew  recounts  in  the 
chapter  from  which  these  verses  are  taken.  And 
this  is  because  the  two  elements  of  all  Tragedy, 


io6  THE    TWO    WILLS 

the  Will  of  God  and  the  Will  of  Man,  are  there 
combined  and  running  to  the  same  end.  In  most 
other  tragedies,  which  have  happened  upon  this 
woeful  world  of  ours,  these  two  are  separate  and 
even  hostile.  Sometimes,  as  chiefly  in  Ancient 
Tragedy,  it  is  the  inscrutable,  irresistible  will  of 
God  which  carries  all  before  it,  baffling  the 
reason  and  breaking  the  hearts  of  the  purest 
and  bravest  of  men.  Fate  and  man  helpless  before 
it  form  the  interest  and  the  pathos.  In  much 
of  Modern  Tragedy,  again,  what  fascinates  us  is 
human  responsibility;  the  demoniac  power  of  the 
individual  will ;  how  it  may  defeat  the  plans  and 
defy  the  love  of  God  Himself. 

But  in  that  Tragedy,  which  divides  the  Ancient 
from  the  Modern  world,  the  love  of  God  and  the 
evil  will  of  man  conspire  to  the  same  end.  Hence 
the  horror  and  the  speed  of  it.  The  Cloud  and 
the  Flood  have  met :  Heaven  dark  with  judg- 
ment, earth  swept  by  passion ;  Christ  by  silence 
consenting  to  His  death,  the  crowds  shouting, 
Crucify  Him!   crucify  Him! 

We  have  all  been  puzzled  by  the  difficulty  of 
reconciling  these  two :  firsty  that  God  willed 
Christ's  death  :  as  St.  Paul  says,  He  spared  not  His 


THE    TWO    WILLS  107 

own  Sony  hut  delivered  Him  up  for  us  all;^  and 
second,  that  man  was  guilty  of  that  death :  as  St. 
Stephen  says,  The  Righteous  One,  of  whom  ye 
have  now  become  betrayers  and  murderers.^  Let 
us  turn  from  the  speculation,  as  to  how  that 
judgment  and  that  guilt  may  be  reconciled,  to  a 
simple  study  of  the  fact  that  both  were  present  in 
the  Death  of  Christ,  which  the  Gospels  make  suffi- 
ciently plain.  And  let  us  lay  most  stress  on  the 
human  share  in  this  great  event,  so  that  we  may 
feel  the  responsibility  which  is  laid  upon  every 
common  man  of  coming  to  a  decision  about 
Christ;  of  deciding  it  may  be  between  Christ 
and  so  ugly  an  alternative  as  Barabbas. 

I 

Nothing  is  clearer  from  the  Gospels  than  this : 
that  it  was  Christ's  own  will  to  die.  He  had  long 
set  His  face  steadfastly  to  Jerusalem.  While 
others  still  deemed  it  impossible,  His  soul  lay 
already  under  the  Shadow  of  the  Cross. 

Some  men  make  up  their  mind  to  die,  when 
they  feel  the  stress  of  circumstance  bearing  in  that 
direction.  And,  indeed,  he  is  invested  with  a 
^Romans  viii.  3s.  'Acts  ?ii.  52. 


To8  THE   TWO    WILLS 

certain  sacredness,  however  mean  in  soul  he  may 
be,  whom  we  see  delivered  to  death  by  events  over 
which  he  has  no  control.  But  Jesus  felt  no  out- 
ward circumstance  compelling  Him  to  death. 
Circumstance,  in  truth,  was  much  the  other  way. 
Humanly  speaking  His  Cross  was  not  inevitable. 
There  were  moments  when  He  might  have 
escaped.  But  He  stirred  up  the  Pharisees, 
disappointed  the  people  who  would  have  made 
Him  King,  bade  Judas  do  his  business,  and,  last 
of  all,  was  silent  before  Pilate. 

It  is  no  less  clear  that  He  did  this  in  order  to 
fulfil  a  mission  laid  upon  Him  by  His  Father.  He 
regarded  opportunities  to  escape  as  temptations. 
The  lips  of  flesh  would  be  excused  from  touching 
that  burning  cup  and  prayed :  Father^  if  it  be  Thy 
wi//,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me.  But  he  added, 
Nevertheless  not  my  will  hut  Thine  he  done. 
Because  it  was  His  Father's  will  He  set  His  face 
ro  the  Cross. 

He  also  declared  why  He  must  suffer.  This 
was  not  for  martyrdom  alone.  He  had  come  to 
bear  witness  to  the  truth  among  a  people  who,  as 
He  pointed  out,  had  with  tragic  consistency  slain 
their   prophets.     Yet   the   burden   of   truth   He 


THE    TWO    WILLS  109 

brought  from  Heaven  was  not  the  only  burden 
He  carried.  He  found  another  awaiting  Him  on 
earth  in  the  sins  of  men ;  and  this,  though 
sinless  Himself,  He  stooped  to  bear  in  all  its 
weight.  For,  besides  meeting  temptation  in  its 
force,  as  only  He  could  who  fought  it  to  victory, 
and  enduring  in  all  its  rigour  the  moral  warfare 
appointed  to  every  man ;  He  had  lifted  the  burden 
of  the  miseries  which  sin  has  brought  upon  the 
world.  Sinless  Himself,  He  had  felt  the  shame 
and  the  guilt  of  sin  as  never  the  best  or  the  worst 
of  men  had  felt  it.  He  had  confessed  it  for  others ; 
He  had  borne  it  in  prayer  to  God.  He  had  pro- 
claimed its  forgiveness.  And  finally  He  had 
connected  His  Death  with  that  forgiveness.  I 
give  my  life.  He  said,  a  ransom  for  many.  This 
is  the  New  Covenant  in  my  blood,  shed  for  many, 
for  the  remission  of  sins. 

All  this  was  settled  and  clear  before  morning 
broke  upon  that  Friday.  That  is  why  He  was  so 
silent  before  the  Jewish  Council  and  with  Pilate. 
Why  should  He  argue  ?  The  great  Argument  of 
His  life  was  over ;  the  Argument  with  God  in  the 
night-time,  in  the  Garden  ;  and  His  heart  was  set 
past  doubt  or  fear  upon  the  Cross.     He  would  not 


no  THE    TWO   WILLS 

say  anything  for  His  own  sake  to  turn  the  unde- 
cided Pilate.  For  Pilate  was  but  the  instrument 
of  the  Father's  will — Thou  wouldest  have  no 
power  against  me  except  it  were  given  thee  from 
ahove^ — and  Jesus  knew  His  Father's  will  to  be 
that  He  should  die. 

It  was  the  Feast  of  the  Jewish  Passover. 
There  was  a  custom  at  the  time  to  set  free  one 
prisoner,  to  pardon  one  criminal.  Israel  had 
been  prisoners  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  on  the 
first  Passover  night  God  had  both  spared  and 
released  them.  Whatever  the  Romans  thought  of 
the  custom,  it  is  obvious  that  the  Jews  themselves 
took  it  as  a  memorial  of  their  nation's  deliverance, 
a  symbol  of  God's  sparing  and  redeeming  mercy. 

But  at  this  Passover  the  custom  was  to  be 
repeated  with  an  exhibition  of  that  mercy  to  which 
their  excited  souls  were  blind.  For  among  the 
prisoners,  who  might  be  released,  was  Jesus  Christ 
Himself,  standing  side  by  side  with  a  very 
notorious  criminal ;  and  the  people  were  given  the 
power  to  choose  between  them,  yet  not  without 
Christ's  own  consent.  One  word,  such  as  a 
Roman  centurion  had  deemed  sufficient  from  those 

^  John  xix.  1 1 . 


THE    TWO    WILLS  iii 

lips,  might  easily,  it  would  appear,  have  persuaded 
the  perplexed  governor  to  spare  a  Person,  with 
whose  greatness  and  with  whose  innocence  he 
was  manifestly  impressed.  But  this  Person,  who 
was  indeed  the  Son  of  God,  and  who  carried  in 
His  heart  all  God's  love  for  men,  was  silent ;  so 
that  upon  the  insistence  of  the  crowd  the  other 
prisoner  was  saved  and  set  free.  We  are  not  told 
what  feelings  of  pity  moved  our  Lord  for  this 
man,  whom  they  brought  up  from  the  dungeon 
and  placed  in  the  sunshine  by  His  side,  while  the 
balance  trembled  between  them.  But  we  know 
that  such  compassion  must  have  been  but  a  single 
drop  of  the  infinite  love  which  filled  His  heart 
for  all  sinners  and  for  their  sakes  kept  Him  silent 
when  a  word  might  have  saved  Him.  It  was  not 
for  Barabbas  only  He  was  silent.  On  that  day 
Christ  Jesus  laid  down  His  life  for  men. 

This  is  His  own  testimony — that  in  giving 
Himself  to  death  He  was  earning  for  men  the  for- 
giveness of  their  sins,  freedom  to  come  to  God, 
power  to  break  from  evil;  and,  in  all  that,  the 
assurance  of  a  new  life  which  can  never  be  taken 
from  them. 

To  this  testimony,  the  experience  of  men,  who 


ri2  THE    TWO   WILLS 

have  believed  it,  has  corresponded.  With  or  with- 
out theories  of  Atonement  they  have  found  that 
it  has  wakened  their  penitence,  answered  their 
conscience,  brought  them  to  God,  assured  them  of 
His  Love,  and  filled  them  with  fresh  moral  power. 
For,  first,  they  have  been  startled  by  Christ's 
Agony  into  feeling  what  sin  is,  what  it  costs,  what 
it  means  in  estranging  God  from  man,  and  the 
suffering  it  therefore  lays  on  the  hearts  of  both. 
At  the  foot  of  Christ's  Cross,  they  have  known 
a  conscience  of  sin,  a  horror  of  it,  and  by  conse- 
quence a  penitence  for  their  own  share  in  it  deeper 
than  anything  else  has  started  in  human  experience. 
And  as  thus  their  whole  spiritual  nature  has  been 
roused,  and  they  have  awakened  to  the  truth  that 
it  would  not  have  been  safe,  nor  in  anywise 
morally  well,  for  them  to  have  been  forgiven  by 
mere  clemency  and  without  feeling  what  sin  costs, 
they  have  come  to  understand  that  in  His  suffer- 
ings Christ  was  their  Substitute.  The  question  of 
the  justice  of  such  a  substitution  has  not  distiirbed 
their  faith  ;  for  if  they  have  thought  about  it,  they 
have  remembered  that,  apart  from  Christ,  it 
happens  again  and  again  in  human  experience,  that 
the  innocent  suffer,  and  gladly  suffer,  for  the  guilty. 


THE    TWO    WILLS  113 

with  moral  results  of  the  most  beneficial  kind  to 
the  latter.  In  Christ  they  see  God's  love  proving 
itself  not  less,  in  sympathy  and  identification  with 
the  worst,  than  human  love  has  again  and  again 
attempted  to  be. 

They  have  not,  of  course,  imagined  that  Christ's 
was  a  physical  substitution ;  for  in  their  most 
awakened  moments  they  have  not  conceived  the 
forgiveness,  which  they  sought,  to  consist  essenti- 
ally in  the  removal  of  the  physical  consequences  of 
their  sins.  The  forgiveness  they  desired,  may 
have  held  that  element  in  it  as  an  incident ;  but  it 
essentially  consisted  in  the  restoration  of  God's 
love  and  trust,  to  their  unworthy  souls.  ^  Now 
Christ  bore  all  that  had  made  this  restoration 
impossible.  He  entered,  as  they  could  not  have 
done,  and  therefore  for  them,  into  the  meaning  of 
sin  and  its  effects.  He  felt  the  bitterness  of  their 
estrangement  from  God,  the  loss  of  the  sense 
of  being  His  sons,  which  sin  had  cost  men :  in 
a  word,  the  real  punishment  of  sin.  And  by 
becoming  one  with  Him,  in  all  this,  His  experi- 
ence in  life  and  death,  they  knew,  in  fulfilment  of 
His  word,  that  the  Father  had  forgiven  them,  and 

*Sce  pp.  17-25. 

H 


H4  THE    TWO    WILLS 

for  Christ's  sake  trusted  them  once  more  as  His 
children. 

We  do  not  know  what  happened  to  Barabbas. 
Scripture,  which  tells  us  of  so  full  a  future  for  the 
penitent  thief,  records  no  more  of  this  man.  But 
of  this  we  may  be  sure,  that  if  Barabbas  remained 
unchanged,  it  was  because  that  morning  when  he 
dropped  from  the  jailors'  hands  into  the  crowd,  he 
heard  nothing  but  Pilate's  voice  commanding  to 
set  him  free;  and  felt  only  the  selfish  gladness 
that  once  more  he  had  escaped.  But  if  he  changed, 
if  he  led  a  new  life,  and  as  an  old  legend  has  it, 
became  a  servant  of  God,  it  was  because  he  under- 
stood the  meaning  of  that  silence  in  which  Christ 
assented  to  His  own  death  and  so  let  him  go 
free. 

And  so,  brethren,  with  ourselves.  If  we  think 
we  can  take  God's  forgiveness  of  His  mere 
clemency,  or  because  He  bestows  it  by  bare 
authority,  or  in  virtue  of  some  magical  transac- 
tion we  cannot  understand,  we  shall  not  know 
those  moral  benefits  for  which  forgiveness  can 
alone  be  bestowed  by  God  or  were  worth  the 
taking  by  ourselves.  We  must  feel  what  our 
pardon  cost  the  Love  of  God,  and  how  much 


THE    TWO   WILLS  115 

that  Love  in  Christ  endured  for  us.  Then  shall 
there  be  born  in  us  a  penitence,  a  faith,  a  gratitude 
which  will  bind  us  to  God,  which  will  give  us  a 
hatred  for  sin,  which  will  beget  in  us  a  power  of 
holiness — as  nothing  else  can. 

So  much  for  the  will  of  God  in  the  sufferings 
and  death  of  Christ.  We  turn  now  to  the  will 
and  sin  of  man. 

11 

If  by  their  sin  men  made  the  death  of  Christ 
necessary,  it  is  not  strange,  in  order  to  bring  this 
home  to  our  hearts,  that  human  responsibility  for 
that  death  should  continue  to  the  very  end — the 
last  nail  which  pierced  Him,  the  last  jest  which  the 
crowd  spattered  upon  His  sufferings.  And  so  the 
shout,  Crucify  Him^  crucify  Him^  came  that  day 
not  with  thunder  from  Heaven,  but  from  the 
throats  of  a  multitude  of  men. 

The  way  in  which  human  guilt  is  brought  out 
in  this  chapter  is  very  tragic.  First  there  is 
Judas,  the  only  one  who  accepted  his  guilt,  and  it 
overwhelmed  him.  The  rest  shirked  their  respon- 
sibility, and  sought  to  pass  it  over  to  one  another. 
But  they  could  not,  for  the  lesson  of  the  chapter  is 


ii6  THE    TWO    WILLS 

that,  where  Christ  is  in  question,  every  man  must 
make  decision  for  himself.  Peter  shirked  it,  the 
Jewish  Council  shirked  it,  Pilate  shirked  it,  and 
so  it  came  back  upon  the  People ;  yet  not  so  that 
the  rest  escaped.  Let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the 
People. 

It  is  significant  that  our  Lord  was  slain  by  no 
mere  drift  of  circumstance,  but  by  the  deliberate 
and  confessed  choice  of  men's  wills,  and  that  He 
was  doomed  to  the  Cross  not  by  the  supreme 
Roman  authority,  but,  before  it  could  pass  sentence, 
by  the  voice  of  the  People.  Think  of  what  the 
People  and  their  leaders  had  done.  They  had 
tried  to  get  rid  of  the  charge  of  blasphemy  they 
brought  against  our  Lord,  and  now  accused  Him 
of  treason  against  Caesar.  Blind  hearts!  Every 
one  of  them  had  been  nearer  making  Him  King 
than  He  had  been  Himself.  It  was  not  He  but 
they  who  had  sinned  against  Caesar.  Yet  they 
made  the  charge  in  order  to  get  His  blood  taken 
off  their  hands.  It  was  to  be  returned  to  them ; 
as  if  God  would  have  this  made  clear,  that  no  man 
who  has  known  Christ  may  escape  a  decision 
regarding  Him. 

They  stood  outside  the  Court,  because  on  that 


THE    TWO    WILLS  117 

day  it  was  not  lawful  for  them  to  enter  Gentile 
precincts.  But  even  so  they  did  not  escape,  for 
the  Governor  brought  Christ  out  to  them,  and  in 
the  end  every  man  of  them  became  His  judge. 
It  was  a  strange  sight  to  see  the  haughty  Roman 
power,  usually  so  contemptuous  of  a  foreign 
people,  delegating  itself  to  a  mob.  What  does 
this  mean,  that  the  death  of  our  Lord  was 
decreed  not  within  that  Court  by  a  fragment  of 
the  great  political  machine  which  covered  the 
world,  but  out  there  on  the  open  streets,  where 
men  had  heard  Him  speak,  on  the  ordinary  stage 
of  their  lives,  where  He  had  helped  and  blessed 
them ;  not  by  official  authority,  but  on  the  streets 
of  common  life  and  by  the  passions  of  common 
men.** 

To  me  it  is  too  striking  a  symbol  of  what 
always  happens  when  Christ  is  in  question,  to  be 
lightly  passed  over. 

God  will  have  every  common  man  who  has 
known  Christ,  to  come  to  a  decision  about  Him. 
This  was  what  Christ  came  into  the  world  for. 
And  we,  to  whom  He  has  been  presented  all  our 
lives,  can,  least  of  all,  hope  to  escape.  The  claims 
of  Christ  on  the  world  are  not  going  to  be  settled 


ii8  THE    TWO   WILLS 

by  our  authorities — either  in  philosophy  or  theo- 
logy. His  last  appeal  is  not  to  the  wisdoms  or 
the  powers  of  the  world,  but  to  the  common 
human  heart,  with  all  its  prejudice  and  passion: 
it  is  to  you  and  to  me. 

Was  not  this  ever  His  way?  He,  who  was 
silent  to  the  Sanhedrin  as  to  Pilate,  laid  bare  His 
nature  to  the  blind  beggar  on  the  Temple  stairs, 
reasoned  with  the  woman  by  the  well  in  Samaria, 
took  exceeding  pains  with  Nicodemus.  Dumb 
before  Herod,  He  gave  His  whole  Gospel  to  the 
Thief  on  the  Cross.  This  was  ever  His  way — to 
seek  the  common  heart,  and  to  argue  with  it  for 
itself. 

Nor  let  us  fail  to  notice  the  hour  in  which  the 
men  of  Jerusalem  were  called  to  give  their  decision. 

The  crowd  which  clamoured  for  the  blood  of 
Jesus  was  much  the  same,  which,  less  than  a  week 
before,  had  shouted  Hosanna  as  He  entered  their 
city  and  had  hailed  Him  as  King.  To  a  human 
eye,  that  would  have  seemed  the  cardinal  point 
in  the  history  of  their  relations  with  Him.  But 
God  chose  another  hour  for  the  crisis.  He  chose, 
not  the  day  of  their  easy  enthusiasm,  but  that  of 
their  power ;    the  one  day  in  the  year  when  they 


THE    TWO    WILLS  119 

were  given  the  right  to  deal  with  Jesus  as  they 
willed ;  the  one  set  of  conditions  in  which  it  was 
possible  for  Jesus  to  be  set  up  before  their  eyes 
with  an  alternative,  and  they  knew  their  power  to 
choose.  The  supreme  moment  in  the  history  of 
Christ  with  themselves  was  not  when  He  came  to 
them  as  the  King  in  His  beauty ;  but  when  He 
stood  an  equal  alternative  with  Barabbas. 

Each  of  our  souls  has  a  history  with  Christ. 
What  are  the  most  decisive  moments  of  that 
experience.?  Not — let  us  know  it  for  our  salva- 
tion— those  of  worship,  enthusiasm,  sacrament; 
but  the  other  perilous  hours  of  choice,  when  our 
wills  are  left  to  ourselves,  when  our  natural  affec- 
tions are  awake,  and  the  touch  of  devotion  is  not 
upon  them ;  and  there  stand  out  clear  to  our 
mind  and  urgent  upon  our  responsibility  Christ 
and  something  else.  Something  else,  and  how 
often  is  that  a  mere  Barabbas! 

Brothers,  none  of  us  knows  the  others'  besetting 
sins.  But  wc  know  this  that  we  are  going  to  be 
judged  by  our  choice  between  these  and  our 
loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  not  our  attitude  to 
our  Lord  in  the  easy  hours  of  worship,  which 
determines  our  true  relation  to  Him;    not  our 


I20  THE    TWO    WILLS 

admiration  of  the  progress  He  makes  as  King 
down  the  ages,  nor  our  assent  to  the  outward 
authorities  established  in  His  Name ;  not  our  joy 
in  the  pomp  and  circumstance  which  men  have 
gathered  in  His  honour ;  not  the  hymns  we  sing  in 
His  praise  nor  the  temples  we  build  for  His  wor- 
ship. Our  real  heart  for  Him  is  shown,  our  true 
relation  to  Him  is  determined,  far  rather  in  those 
other,  darker  hours,  when  temptation  is  strong 
upon  us ;  and  we  have  to  choose  between  Himself 
and  our  sin.  May  God's  Spirit  enforce  upon  our 
minds  that  this,  our  relation  to  Christ,  upon  which 
hang  our  character  and  our  peace  for  time  and  for 
eternity,  turns  neither  upon  the  inclination  of  our 
emotions  nor  upon  our  intellectual  assent,  nor 
upon  our  adherence  to  human  authority  or  custom, 
but  essentially  upon  the  giving  of  our  will  to 
Him — upon  our  choice  of  Him,  to  whom  experi- 
ence presents  to  us  so  many  alternatives. 


yii 

THE  MORAL  MEANING  OF  HOPE 

But  according  to  His  promise,  we  look  for  new  heavens  and  a 
new  earthy  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  Wherefore, 
beloved,  seeing  that  ye  look  for  these  things,  give  diligence 
that  ye  may  be  found  in  peace,  without  spot  and  blameless 
in  His  sight. — 2  Pitir  iii.  13,  14. 

'T^O  the  conscience  of  man  the  Christian  religion 
-*-  presents  two  views  of  the  future,  which, 
however  alike  they  be  in  their  proper  demands 
upon  us,  greatly  differ  in  appearance  and  in 
scale. 

Sometimes  it  is  a  narrow  vista  which  opens  up 
to  each  of  us — which  opens  up  to  a  man  from  his 
own  feet,  as  if  all  his  life  were  a  racecourse,  and  his 
one  duty  were  to  keep  his  eye  upon  the  thin  ribbon 
of  the  track,  and  the  sharp  goal  at  the  end  of  it :  his 
single  salvation. 

But   along   other  lines  of  view   the   prospect 


122    MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE 

changes.  I  lift  my  eyes  and  see  no  more  that  one 
point  of  welcome  pricked  out  in  the  darkness  for 
me.  It  is  lost  in  the  radiance  of  the  whole  horizon. 
My  heart  is  summoned  not  as  to  a  goal,  not  as  to 
a  strait  gate,  not  as  to  a  Father's  arms  opened  only 
for  me — but  to  a  Kingdom,  to  a  day  as  broad  as  the 
world,  to  new  heavens  and. a  new  earth.  It  is  this 
prospect  which  the  apostle  opens  through  our  text, 
and  yet  he  draws  from  it  a  consequence  as  personal 
as  any  which  is  drawn  from  the  other.  His 
consequence  is  character.  The  future  glory  is 
universal,  on  the  scale  of  heaven  and  earth.  But 
its  re-action  and  its  focus  upon  to-day  are  personal 
and  singular.  Wherefore^  seeing  that  ye  look  for 
these  things^  give  diligence  that  ye  may  he  found 
in  peace,  without  spot  and  blameless. 

Now,  character  is  thus  related  to  hope  along 
both  of  two  lines.  It  may  be  represented  as  the 
proper  effect  of  so  rich  a  hope,  our  grateful  and 
natural  response  to  such  a  gift ;  or  character  may 
be  represented  as  being  the  only  means  of  bringing 
such  a  hope  to  pass,  our  practical  duty  in  the  face  of 
a  divine  opportunity.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  to 
separate  these  two  logically.  I  propose  that  now 
wc  should  dwell  principally  on  the  first ;   but  use 


MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE    123 

the  inspiration  we  thereby  win  for  a  few  incidental 
illustrations  of  the  second. 

One  of  the  commonplaces  of  our  life  is  the 
contrast  between  the  unsubstantial  quality  of  hope, 
and  the  solid  proofs  of  her  practical  power  which 
she  leaves  in  experience.  All  our  hopes  arc  like 
that  bridge  of  moonshine  which  the  young  Otto- 
man prince  saw  flash  to  him  across  the  Hellespont. 
For  years  the  Strait  had  marked  the  limit  of  his 
nation's  power.  They  had  overrun  Asia,  but  were 
arrested  here.  And  he,  who  had  been  born  and 
who  had  grown  to  leadership  on  these  shores,  used 
to  pace  them  in  royal  discontent  that  there  was  no 
room  left  for  him  also  to  go  forward  like  his 
fathers.  But  one  night  (as  the  story  goes)  on 
which  he  had  come  out  alone  with  his  despair,  the 
full  moon  suddenly  burst  the  clouds  and  flashed  a 
path  to  the  opposite  continent.  In  a  moment  his 
feelings  changed.  He  made  the  resolution ;  and 
the  shining  had  not  faded  from  the  waters  before 
an  Ottoman  band  was  over  and  in  possession  of 
the  first  post  of  those  European  domains  which 
the  Turks  have  held  for  five  hundred  years. 

It  is  the  way  with  all  great  hopes.  Seeming 
unsubstantial  as  the  moonlight,  they  arc  nevcrthc- 


124    MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE 

less  strong  bridges  across  the  impossible,  without 
which  few  enterprises  would  be  imagined,  and 
none  achieved. 

What  are  the  contents  of  this  commonplace? 
The  chief  contents,  the  indispensable  ones,  are 
without  doubt  ethical.  As  all  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament  insist,  hope  helps  a  man  first  of  all 
by  rousing  his  conscience.  This  is  certainly  part 
of  what  Paul  means  when  he  says :  We  were  saved 
by  hope}  A  great  hope,  whatever  its  object  be, 
quickens  the  moral  sense.  So  St.  John  declares 
explicitly  of  the  Christian's  chief  expectation. 
We  shall  see  Him  as  He  is ;  and  everyone  that  hath 
this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself  as  He  is  pure? 
And  so  St.  Peter  in  our  text :  Seeing  that  ye  look 
for  these'  things^  give  diligence  that  ye  he  found 
without  spot. 

Now,  this  is  true  even  of  the  common  hopes  of 
life,  the  objects  of  which  are  not  primarily  ethical. 
On  those  of  us  who  at  this  time  close  their 
university  career,  and  their  preparation  for  the 
work  of  their  lives,  these  common  hopes  are  richly 
breaking :  hopes  that  spring  from  a  long  sense  of 
the  light  of  intellectual  comradeship  and  rivalry; 
*  Romans  viii.  24.  *  i  John  iii.  2,  3. 


MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE    125 

hopes  that  start  from  the  surprise  of  new  ideas, 
without  the  sobering  experience  of  how  slowly, 
relatively  to  the  length  of  individual  lives,  ideas 
work ;  hopes  that  issue  from  having  mastered  the 
results  of  the  leaders  of  our  race,  with  your 
strength  still  unspent ;  hopes  that  spring  from 
the  first  appreciation  of  the  opportunities  of  the 
great  professions,  without  any  experience  of  their 
strain,  their  competition  and  their  jealousies — 
hopes  which  only  those  may  feel  who  still  look  out 
on  life  with  strength  unwasted  and  hearts  uncom- 
promised. 

What  I  seek  to  impress  upon  you  is,  that  the 
thrill  and  assurance  with  which  you  feel  these  hopes 
are  vain  unless  at  the  same  time  they  become  a 
conscience  within  you.  Do  not  suppose  it  is  by 
the  new  elasticity  we  feel  in  mind  and  body  that 
hope  saves  us.  Hope  saves  us  by  revealing 
ourselves.  Her  light  leaps  upon  us  with  questions 
louder  than  any  voice,  and  more  fiill  of  awe  than 
we  shall  find  even  the  darkness  of  death  to  be. 
Are  you  ready  for  me.^  Are  you  worthy  of  me.^ 
Of  course,  a  man  may  have  had  much  previous 
discipline,  and  when  his  long-deferred  hope  comes 
at  last,  he  may  rise  and  go  to  meet  her  with  as 


126    MORAL    MEANING    OF   HOPE 

honest  a  pride  as  a  bridegroom.  But  I  imagine 
that  there  are  few  of  us  who  do  not  require  to  feel 
in  the  presence  of  even  the  most  indulgent  and  best 
deserved  of  all  our  hopes  a  shame  and  anxiety 
about  ourselves.  Believe,  brothers,  however 
bright  be  the  ideals  granted  to-day  to  your  minds, 
their  first  office  is  to  show  you  the  sordidness  of 
the  real  within  yourselves.  Rejoice  in  the  buoy- 
ancy and  spontaneousness  which  a  shining  hope 
bestows,  but  remember  that  Hope  is  given  for 
self-knowledge  as  well,  and  while  she  draws  out 
your  heart  to  her  pray  her  to  search  it.  Launch 
forth  upon  those  shining  paths  of  light  which 
heaven  casts  across  the  untried  ocean  of  life  to  the 
feet  of  every  healthy  youth:  hut  give  diligence 
that  ye  may  he  found  without  spot  and  hlameless 
in  His  sight — in  His  sights  for  every  hope, 
however  common,  is  the  eye  of  God  upon  you. 

But,  of  course,  all  this  is  more  true  of  such  hopes 
as  are  essentially  ethical :  of  hopes  that  are,  in  part 
or  whole,  visions  of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new 
earthy  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  We  need 
not  inquire  what  the  early  Christians  imagined  by 
this,  for  we  have  our  own  vision  of  it  to-day.  The 
great  prospect  is  not  only  bright  in  the  print  of  our 


MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE    127 

Bibles :  God  has  kindled  it  in  the  skies  we  look 
ahead  to.  God  has  made  this  future  practical,  not 
simply  by  promising  it  in  the  letter  of  this  ancient 
Book,  but  by  laying  it  on  the  conscience  of  living 
men  as  the  chief  end  and  expectation  of  religion. 
He  has  stung  men  with  the  sense  of  the  need  of  it 
in  the  present  awful  condition  of  multitudes  of 
our  brothers,  especially  in  the  greater  cities  of 
the  world.  He  has  stirred  within  millions  of  the 
poor  a  hope  of  its  coming,  and  has  constrained 
thousands  of  all  classes  and  creeds  to  make  it  their 
common  labour.  For  that  is  how  God  always 
makes  the  future  practical.  When  His  poor  give 
Him  their  hope  for  it ;  and  His  Church  gives  Him 
her  prayers  for  it ;  and  the  strong  and  the  wise 
give  Him  their  toil  for  it — then  the  future  is 
pledged,  it  is  on  its  way,  we  shall  live  to  see  it. 
Religion  has  become  social  and  altruistic  as  it  has 
seldom  been  before.  The  Churches  have  been 
roused  to  feel  that  it  is  not  enough  for  a  man 
to  save  his  own  soul ;  but  that  as  Christ  had  pity 
on  the  multitude;  as  He  was  not  merely  the 
physician  of  a  few  elect,  but  went  about  doing  good 
and  healing  all,  in  body  as  well  as  soul;  as  He 
fed  the  hungry,  and  promised  the  earth  to  the 


128    MORAL    MEANING    OF   HOPE 

meek ;  and  as  He  reigns  now  to  fulfil  these 
promises ;  so  His  followers  dare  not  be  satisfied 
with  a  narrower  view,  or  a  service  less  extended. 
Nor  has  any  art,  philosophy  or  department  of 
politics  failed  to  catch  the  enthusiasm — till,  as  you 
know,  we  cannot  cross  life  by  any  of  its  avenues 
but  the  spirit  of  my  text  is  in  the  air  and  its 
prospect  fills  the  vista.  There  is,  of  course,  a  great 
deal  of  wild  talk  and  of  thinking  which  is  only 
half  conscious  of  what  it  would  be  after.  All  men 
have  not  caught  the  words  of  the  New  Song  which 
God's  spirit  is  striving  to  set  upon  the  lips  of 
this  generation.  But  the  masses  are  marching 
to  the  tune  of  it,  and  their  faces  are  lifted  to  its 
hope.  Therefore,  if  to-day  we  are  awake,  we 
cannot  help  being  among  those  of  whom  the 
apostle  says,  that  they  look  for  new  heavens  and  a 
new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness. 

But  this  near  hope  of  the  world — what  ought 
it  to  be  for  you  and  me  individually.?  It  ought 
to  be  conscience  and  it  ought  to  be  character.  The 
ideals  of  a  generation  may  sometimes  have  been 
as  bright  as  they  are  to-day ;  they  have  never  had 
in  them  more  of  stimulus  and  elevation  for  the 
individual.      Young   men,   you   are   approaching 


MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE    129 

public  life  in  an  age,  in  whose  hopes  the  motives 
to  character  are  more  pure  and  urgent  than  they 
have  ever  been.  Here  it  is  not  possible  to  fall 
into  those  delusions,  which  in  times  past  have  so 
often  followed  upon  the  highest  doctrines  of 
religion  and  have  dogged  its  purest  intentions. 
Here  are  no  religious  promises  capable  of  being 
usurped  by  the  baser  passions.  Here  is  no 
peril  of  religion  degenerating  into  a  refined 
quality  of  selfishness.  Here  is  no  possibility 
of  contentment  with  the  merely  negative  virtues ; 
nor  of  exhaustion  in  the  work  of  political 
or  ecclesiastical  emancipation  and  reconstruction. 
But  to-day  the  conscience  of  man  feels  more 
broadly  than  ever  before  that  Love  is  the  fulfilling 
of  the  Law ;  that  service  is  the  end  of  culture ; 
and  that  the  employment  for  the  world  of  each 
faculty  of  our  redeemed  and  sanctified  manhood  is, 
as  it  was  to  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament, 
the  one  form  of  Divine  election  which  is  clear, 
practical  and  without  mystery. 

Nevertheless — for  no  form  of  religion  can  ever 
exist  without  the  defects  of  its  qualities — we,  too, 
have  our  particular  danger  to  guard  against.     The 

ere  of  our  religious  hope  is  so  extensive,  so 
I 


I30    MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE 

universal,  that  we  are  all  in  danger  of  missing  the 
personal  in  it.  The  very  fact  I  have  ab-eady 
mentioned,  that  this  hope  has  enlisted  and  sways 
so  many  of  the  great  forces  of  our  time,  especially 
in  politics  and  science  ;  that  it  has  inspired  so  many 
theories  and  created  so  many  organisations,  makes 
it  possible  that  in  our  study  and  our  use  of  the 
life  to  which  it  has  quickened  all  these,  we  may 
forget  what  it  requires  of  our  individual  characters. 
We  cannot  help  being  engaged  intellectually 
with  those  religious  hopes  of  ours.  Philosophy, 
theoretic  and  practical,  is  everywhere  busy  with 
them.  We  cannot  help  feeling  those  hopes 
emotionally.  They  come  upon  us  in  the  art,  the 
music  and  the  poetry  of  our  time.  But  let 
us  see  that  we  permit  them  to  work  out  their  moral 
effects  upon  ourselves.  Read  yourselves  in  their 
light,  and  let  them  be  to  you  for  a  conscience  and 
for  an  inspiration  to  character. 

One  knows,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  all  men  who 
think  such  an  application  necessary  ;  and  that  from 
some  high  places  in  our  own  generation — as  in 
previous  generations — 3.  very  different  doctrine  has 
been  preached,  a  very  different  example  has  been 
shown.     There   have   been,   nearly  at  all   times, 


MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE    131 

leaders  of  the  people,  labouring  for  their  righteous 
hopes,  whose  private  lives  have  nevertheless  been 
unworthy ;  and  the  success  of  such  men,  and  their 
apparent  indispensableness  for  the  moment  to  some 
high  cause  of  reform,  has  led  to  the  frequent 
saying,  that  private  character  has  nothing  to  do 
with  public  ends.  I  am  not  now  concerned  with 
the  question  whether  immoral  men  may  not  some- 
times be  of  use  to  the  common  weal.  But  look  at 
the  effect  upon  themselves.  Brothers,  if  a  man 
have  his  eyes  opened  to  a  great  ideal,  if  he  so 
vividly  behold  a  hope  of  righteousness  as  to  be 
moved  to  speak  and  labour  for  it,  and  if  he  have 
put  head  and  heart  to  some  national  service ;  and 
yet  feel  no  stimulus  to  better  his  own  character, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  continue  to  live  in  private  a 
loose  and  sensual  life,  such  a  man's  genius  may  be 
a  useful  tool  in  the  hands  of  Providence — it  is  a 
difficult  question! — but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he 
is  fetal  to  himself.  PFhat  shall  it  profit  a  man^ 
even  here,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his 
own  soulf  To  sin  against  such  light;  not  to  be 
steadied  by  so  high  a  trust ;  not  to  be  purer  for  the 
enthusiasm  and  loyalty  of  so  many  true  hearts  in 
so  great  a  cause,  is  to  squander  some  of  the  finest 


132    MORAL    MEANING    OF   HOPE 

possibilities  of  character  and  to  sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

This  sermon,  however,  is  meant  for  you  and  me, 
my  common  brothers  of  the  crowd,  who,  in 
addition  to  the  evil  examples  which  are  shown 
from  some  high  places,  are  also  tempted  by  our 
obscurity  to  miss  the  vital  connection  that  exists 
between  the  great  hopes  of  our  day  and  our 
individual  characters.  If  you  will  open  your 
hearts  to  these  hopes,  you  must  feel  the  power  of 
sanctification  which  lies  in  them.  For  theirs  is  the 
attraction  of  the  Living  God,  who  draws  and  who 
disciplines  men  not  only  by  the  Bible,  but  by  all 
the  visions  and  enterprises  of  righteousness  which 
have  dawned  and  sprung  in  their  own  day.  In 
the  large  public  ideals  and  movements  of  our  time 
feel  His  calling  and  His  influence  upon  yourself : 
the  opportunity  He  grants  your  soul  to  rise  and 
purge  herself  of  the  ignoble  and  the  selfish. 

That  is  for  your  own  sake,  but  for  their  sakes 
also  these  hopes  appeal  to  you.  Loyalty  to  them 
can  only  be  achieved  by  loyalty  to  yourself. 
"  Your  character,"  they  cry,  "  is  necessary  for  our 
fulfilment."  The  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth 
are  to  be  created  by  no  other  means  than  the 


MORAL    MEANING    OF   HOPE    133 

redemption  and  the  righteousness  of  the 
individual. 

For,  first  of  all,  the  social  problem  is  just  the 
sum  of  individual  sins  in  the  past,  as  I  think 
Christ  Himself  implies  in  the  Parable  of  the 
Good  Samaritan.  The  impurity  of  society ;  the 
entanglement  of  society  in  many  evil  habits  and 
customs ;  the  accumulation  of  wrong  and  suffering 
which  confronts  her  statesmanship  and  her  charity, 
represent,  in  a  large  proportion  at  least,  just  so 
many  definite  opportunities  missed,  so  many  single 
trusts  betrayed,  so  many  particular  oversights 
by  individuals  of  definite  cases  of  pain  and  want 
by  the  side  of  their  own  paths  through  life 
(witness  the  Priest  and  Levite  with  the  wounded 
man) :  just  so  many  acts  of  cruelty,  passion  and 
cowardice.  Till  each  of  us  fulfils  his  own  duties 
to  society  and  we  all  do  our  best  with  the  cases  of 
suffering  by  our  own  roadside,  we  shall  be  only 
multiplying  the  evils  to  meet  which  our  social 
theories  and  charitable  organisations  are  in  these 
days  being  so  confidently  invented  and  constructed. 

And  again,  we  have  come  through  a  long  period 
of  intellectual  and  political  experiments  at  Reform  ; 
we  have  organised  and  achieved  a  large  amount  of 


134    MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE 

careful  observation  and  scientific  arrangement  of 
the  social  phenomena  of  oxir  civilisation.  We  arc 
beginning  to  see  how  far  political  theories,  and 
how  far  education,  can  carry  us  in  the  reform 
of  society.  The  result  may  be  a  disappointment  of 
those  expectations,  which  political  reform  and 
education  so  richly  raised  in  the  hearts  of  our 
fathers ;  but  that  only  leaves  us  free  to  see 
how  much  more  depends  on  the  cultivation  of 
individual  morality;  and  how  the  ultimate  factor 
in  all  social  reform  is  character.  This  is  the  issue 
before  the  young  men  and  women  of  to-day ;  and 
it  presents  itself  more  clear  and  imperative  than  to 
the  conscience  and  experience  of  any  previous 
generation.  How  are  you  to  face  it  ?  Weakened 
by  the  self-indulgence  and  compromises  of  the 
years  through  which  you  are  now  passing.?  Or 
uncompromised,  untainted,  strong  and  ready  to 
fight  the  evil  which  is  without,  because  within  you 
are  pure,  free  and  unafraid .? 

I  close  with  another  consideration.  Wc  have 
been  looking  at  our  text  as  if  it  were  only  a  hope. 
But  it  is  more :  it  is  a  promise.  We  look  for  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth,  according  to  His 
promises^  as  one  reading  runs.     And  of  these  two 


MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE    135 

especially  are  conspicuous.  The  first  is  a  com- 
mand, and  naturally  so ;  for  no  promise  can  have 
righteousness  for  its  object,  and  not  speak  also  in 
the  imperative  mood.  Conversely,  conscience  is 
itself  a  Promise.  The  Word  of  God,  whether 
within  our  hearts,  or  on  the  page  of  Scripture, 
never  commands  without  also  creating  the  power 
to  fulfil  the  command.  He  who  said  Let  there  he 
Lights  and  there  was  Light ^  cannot  say  Thou  shalt 
to  a  man,  without  in  the  very  commandment 
starting  within  him  at  least  the  beginning  of  a  sense 
of  power  to  fulfil  it.  With  God  to  command  is  to 
promise,  and  to  promise  is  to  create.  Righteous- 
ness is  the  one  certainty  in  our  future,  because  it  is 
the  Divine  obligation  in  our  present.  And  if  the 
first  great  promise  of  God  be  thus  a  Command,  the 
second  is  a  Guarantee.  It  lies  in  the  life  of  His 
Son  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  we  have  seen,  as 
in  our  flesh  and  against  our  temptations,  righteous- 
ness already  perfect  and  victorious  over  evil.  It  is 
here  that  Christianity  distinguishes  itself  from 
Optimism,  which  is  only  a  temper  without  either 
conscience  or  experience.  Mere  Optimism  has 
no  fear  of  God  upon  it,  that  springs  from  the 
imperative  obligation  of  His  commandments ;   no 


136    MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE 

discipline  resulting  from  that ;  no  faith  in  the 
creative  power  of  the  divine  command  ;  and  above 
all,  no  memory  of  the  great  fact,  that  God's  will 
has  been  fully  revealed  and  achieved  in  the 
character  and  work  of  Christ. 

Brethren,  whether  the  social  ideals  of  our  age 
work  themselves  into  fact  or  not,  there  is  no  doubt 
— by  the  God  we  believe  in,  by  the  conscience  He 
has  set  in  us,  by  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ, 
His  Son — that  a  perfect  righteousness  is  the 
ultimate  future  of  human  experience.  Here  or 
across  the  grave  there  is  being  prepared  for  us  all 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  That  is  certain,  and  we  are 
immortal.  Some  day  we  shall  be  brought  face  to 
face  with  it,  and  have  to  realise  definitely  our 
relation  to  it.  But  the  awfulness  of  such  an  hour 
will  not  consist  in  this,  that  the  thing  we  then 
meet  shall  be  strange  and  novel  to  us ;  but  rather 
in  this,  that  it  shall  not  be  new,  and  that  it  shall 
not  be  strange.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  certain, 
and  we  are  immortal ;  but  none  of  us  is  going  to 
meet  it  for  the  first  time.  The  Kingdom  has 
already  come.  In  Jesus  Christ  we  have  understood 
it,  we  have  owned  its  obligation,  we  have  felt  its 
full  influence.     What  else  can  be  displayed  in  the 


MORAL    MEANING    OF   HOPE    137 

new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  than  the  righteous- 
ness revealed  in  Him :  the  duty,  the  opportunity, 
the  power  to  fulfil,  which  He  is  now  affording! 
Their  obligation  lies  in  this,  that  they  arc  not 
merely  the  brightest  possibility  in  our  future,  but 
the  most  urgent  certainty  upon  our  present.  They 
have  proved  themselves  real  in  human  history; 
they  have  proved  themselves  real  in  our  individual 
experience;  and  to-day  they  present  themselves 
afresh  with  all  the  power  of  God  upon  them  to  win 
and  to  redeem  and  to  rebuild  our  fallen  characters. 
That  is  why  we  must  meet  them  again,  and  meet 
Him  in  whom  they  are  manifest.  For  as  men  shall 
be  judged  by  the  highest  they  have  known  of 
holiness,  and  the  strongest  they  have  felt  of  love, 
and  the  widest  they  have  seen  of  moral  oppor- 
tunity, so  must  it  certainly  be  that  Christ  shall 
stand  as  their  Judge. 

Do  we,  therefore,  wonder  that  the  Apostle 
inserts  in  our  text,  as  he  calls  us  to  the  hopes  of 
righteousness,  a  phrase  I  have  not  yet  touched — 
that  ye  may  be  found  of  Him  in  peace.  How 
much  there  remains  to  be  done  behind  our  present, 
and  within  our  hearts,  before  we  can  meet  these 
hopes  in  peace,  look  them  in  the  face,  and  say — 


138    MORAL    MEANING    OF    HOPE 

"  They  are  mine,  and  I  am  free  to  work  with  them 
and  for  them."  May  God's  spirit  so  stir 
penitence  within  us ;  and  the  assurance  of  that 
forgiveness  which  our  Lord  lived  and  died  to 
win  for  us ;  and  the  faith  that  He  can  render  even 
the  worst  and  most  stunted  of  us  worthy  of  those 
hopes — that  we  may  indeed  make  them  our  own, 
and  in  all  freedom  and  fearlessness  press  on  to  their 
fulfilment  for  ourselves  and  our  race. 


VIII 
THE   GOOD   SAMARITAN 

But  h(^  desiring  to  justify  himself,  said  unto  Jesus,  And  who  is 
my  neighbour  ?  Jesus  made  answer  and  said,  A  certain 
man  was  going  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  ;  and  he 
fell  among  robbers,  which  both  stripped  him  and  beat  him, 
and  departed,  leaving  him  half  dead. — Lukb  x.  29  ff. 

'T^HIS  story  starts  from  a  question  of  Eternal 
-^  Life,  intended  to  be  controversial,  and  it 
closes  with  such  practical  matters  as  the  finding  of 
a  wounded  man  by  the  road-side,  oil,  wine,  an  ass, 
and  twopence  paid  at  an  inn.  It  begins,  I  say, 
with  a  question  about  Eternal  Life  and  ends  with 
the  payment  of  twopence.  Along  which  line  lies 
much  of  its  significance  for  us. 

A  Lawyer — not  in  our  modern  sense  of  the  term, 
but  an  expert  in  religious  law,  a  Divine  as  much  as 
a  Lawyer — asked  our  Lord  two  questions,  both  of 
which   were,   in   themselves,   lawful   and  urgent. 


I40         THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

To  begin  with,  he  said :  Teacher^  what  shall  I  do 
to  inherit  eternal  life?  In  reply,  Jesus  asked  him 
what  he  found  in  that  Law,  of  which  he  was  a 
master ;  and  the  Lawyer  quoted  the  same  verses,  in 
which  on  another  occasion  Jesus  summed  up  the 
whole  Law.  Whereupon  our  Lord  would  have 
dismissed  His  questioner  to  the  practical  fulfilment 
of  them.  This  do  and  thou  shalt  live.  The 
Lawyer,  however,  had  still  to  clear  himself  of  the 
appearance  of  having  asked  a  needless  question ; 
and,  besides,  he  had  not  reached  the  real  end  for 
which  he  had  come.  And — there  is  an  emphasis 
on  this  word,  as  if  to  urge  a  vital  connection 
between  the  first  and  the  second  question — Andy 
who  is  my  neighbour  f  This,  too,  was  in  itself 
a  serious  request.  It  was  a  running  controversy 
in  the  schools,  a  daily  problem  of  conduct  to 
scrupulous  men.  What  persons  and  characters 
may  I  frequent  ^  To  whom  do  I  owe  the  services 
commanded  by  the  Law?  But  the  Lawyer  did 
not  set  the  question  for  either  its  academic  or  its 
practical  interest.  The  narrative  says,  he  was 
tempting  our  Lord :  tempting  Him  into  contro- 
versy with  the  view  of  getting  Him  to  say  some- 
thing at  variance  with  the  letter  of  the  Law  and 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         141 

with  orthodox  opinion.  Jesus  befriended  and 
blessed  all  kinds  of  character,  which  were  beyond 
the  legal  definition  of  neighbours ;  and  the  Lawyer 
hoped  to  entrap  Him  into  a  statement  in  conflict 
with  that  definition.  Our  Lord  ignored  the 
attempt  upon  Himself,  and  instead  of  answering 
the  question  dogmatically,  told  a  story.  It  boldly 
stormed  every  prejudice  of  His  enemy,  for  its 
hero  was  one  whom  he  considered  an  outcast,  and 
its  delinquents  were  a  Priest  and  a  Levite,  two  of 
the  pillars  of  his  system.  But  it  reached  his  heart, 
enlisted  his  sympathy  and  commanded  his  imita- 
tion. The  Lawyer  was  affronted,  but  the  Man 
was  won. 

The  Lawyer  asked  for  a  definition ;  Christ 
replied  by  describing  a  situation. 

Observe  how,  to  begin  with,  our  Lord  flings 
the  whole  subject  out  of  the  atmosphere  in  which 
the  lawyers  of  the  time  were  discussing  it.  For 
most  of  them  its  interests  were  purely  doctrinal 
and  academic ;  even  to  those  of  a  tender  conscience, 
to  whom  it  was  practical,  the  details  of  conduct 
which  it  raised  were  often  petty  and  formal. 
Stirring  up  of  abstract  ideas,  bandying  of  ques- 
tions  of   food   and   trade,   and   of   touching   the 


142         THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

garments  of  unclean  persons ;  the  air  thick  with  the 
beating  of  dead  men's  opinions  and  the  defining  of 
trifles  into  dust :  nothing  concrete  or  alive,  save  the 
sharp  tempers  of  the  debaters  which,  like  the  malice 
of  this  questioner,  flashed  as  swords  through  smoke. 
Out  of  all  that,  Christ  flings  the  subject  into 
real  life.     Where  does  it  alight  ?     It  alights  upon 
one  of  the  most  dangerous  roads  in  Palestine ;  and 
one  of  the  best-known.     The  men  of  our  Lord's 
audience  must  have  trodden  this  as  pilgrims  and 
known  that  they  would  tread  it  again ;   when  the 
voices,  so  brave  for  argument  in  the  Temple-courts 
and  synagogues,  would  sink  to  whispers  as  the 
speakers  hurried  on,  with  robbery  and  wounds 
possible  at  every  corner.     We  may  be  sure  that 
the  well-known  dangers  which  our  Lord  intro- 
duced, the  rough  and  bleeding  facts,  would  daunt 
every  pedant  or  malicious  thought  His  hearers  had 
about  the  topic,  and  purge  their  sympathies  for 
what  was  to  follow.    It  is  one  of  those  things  which 
our  Lord  did  with  creative  power :  one  of  those 
points,  which  we  scarcely  notice  in  our  careless 
reading,  but  at  which  He  changes  the  whole  atmos- 
phere of  the  subject;    and  lo!     our  hearts  are 
changed  with  it. 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         143 

We  all  know  how  easily  the  conscience  and 
sympathy,  which  God  has  given  us  for  the  help  of 
the  needy,  may  be  exhausted  by  a  score  of  plausible 
pre-occupations  long  before  we  get  in  sight  of  the 
work  itself.  And  we  cannot  hide  from  our  minds 
that  in  this  respect  religion  itself  may  become  a 
danger,  and  we  be  so  busy  with  its  definition  and 
arrangement  as  to  have  no  strength  left  for  the 
duties  which  religion  is  meant  to  inspire.  Surely 
this  is  what  Christ  felt  had  happened  to  the  Divine 
and  all  his  class ;  surely  this  was  what  He  sought 
to  change  when  He  flung  the  subject  free  of 
religious  associations  and  caused  it  to  alight  where 
it  did. 

Before  we  take  up  the  characters  of  the  story, 
let  us  look  a  little  longer  at  the  scene,  which  our 
Lord  has  chosen  for  His  example  of  neighbour- 
liness. This  is  not  the  home,  nor  the  church,  nor 
the  market,  nor  the  battlefield,  nor  any  stage  on 
which  is  brought  to  bear  either  social  affection  or 
discipline,  or  patriotism,  or  the  opinion  of  those 
whom  we  esteem.  It  is  the  Road:  the  lonely, 
uninspiring,  commonplace  Road,  which  spells 
weariness,  danger  and  the  falling  night;  where 
man   has   none   of   the   motives   that   keep   him 


(44         THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

unselfish  at  home  or  on  the  accustomed  theatre  of 
his  work.  "  Travel,"  say  many  moralists,  "  Travel 
with  a  man  if  you  wish  to  find  out  his  character." 
So  also  Christ  presented  His  test  of  philanthropy 
amid  the  conditions  of  a  journey.  Tempted  in 
all  points  as  we  are,  His  feet  had  trod  the  weary 
ways  of  this  earth,  and  His  heart  knew  how, 
though  ready  of  help  where  discipline  and  loved 
faces  draw  it  forth,  we  often  become  so  callous  and 
irresponsible  when  we  go  on  a  journey.  It  is  a 
strange  commentary  on  this  parable,  that  none  arc 
more  apt  to  be  selfish,  irritable  and  indifferent  to 
suffering  by  the  roadside  than  pilgrims  of  all 
creeds.  The  story  of  religious  pilgrimage  is  a  sor- 
did and  a  cruel  story  :  there  is  no  more  sullied  page 
in  human  history.  Now  Jesus,  the  Wayfarer,  was 
peaking  to  a  people  of  pilgrims.  But  for  us  His 
lesson  is  wider.  It  is  this :  how  much  of  the  work 
and  virtue  God  demands  of  us  has  to  be  done  apart 
from  all  those  customary  rewards  and  inspirations, 
on  which,  in  our  selfishness  and  vanity,  we  too 
much  depend.  This  is  heroism — to  do  our  work 
without  audience  or  stimulus,  where  all  the  bias  and 
hang  of  the  heart  is  the  other  way.  May  those 
who  have  to  travel  through  life  amid  such  condi- 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         145 

tions,  with  few  or  no  natural  aids  to  virtue,  weary, 
alone,  without  any  provocations  to  enthusiasm, 
remember  that  theirs  are  the  high  places  of  the 
field.  Theirs  are  the  posts  and  the  ways  on  which 
our  Lord  has  His  eye,  and  among  them  it  is  that 
the  Master  seeks  for  His  ideals  of  service. 

Upon  this  Road  what  a  fortuitous  concourse  of 
persons  our  Lord  exhibits  to  us!  A  half-dead 
man,  a  Priest,  a  Levite,  and  a  journeying 
Samaritan.  No  possible  "  social  contract  "  could 
have  brought  them  together ;  neither  kinship  nor 
patriotism  nor  a  common  faith.  See  how  Christ 
emphasises  that  it  was  by  chance  they  came.  The 
poor  man  fell  among  robbers.  By  chance,  came 
down  a  Priest  that  way.  And  likewise  a  Levite. 
And  a  certain  Samaritan,  as  he  journey ed,  came 
where  he  was. 

What  an  explosion  there  is  here  of  all  formulas 
of  neighbourliness  and  charity!  Who  is  my 
neighbour?  asks  the  Lawyer,  expecting  a  defini- 
tion. I  cannot  tell  you,  Christ  replies,  till  circum- 
stances create  him  for  you.  You  want  a  dogmatic 
exposition  of  a  neighbour,  either  to  use  it  for  con- 
troversy, or  to  have  an  ideal,  with  which  you  may 
warm  your  heart ;    or  to  create  a  class  and  close 


146        THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

corporation  for  yourself.  But  I  am  come  to  tell 
you  that  only  facts  will  reveal  your  neighbour, 
and  your  duty  to  him ;  and  woe  to  you,  if, 
pre-occupied  like  Priest  and  Levite  with 
theories  of  what  a  neighbour  should  be,  you 
leave  the  fact  alone  and  pass  by  on  the  other 
side. 

It  is  thus  that  the  parable  most  keenly  comes 
home  to  ourselves.  Its  purpose  is  not  so  much  to 
create  charitable  feelings  in  our  heart,  or  to  give  us 
for  the  first  time  a  conscience  of  duty  towards  our 
fellow  men ;  as  to  warn  us  how  easily  that  feeling 
and  conscience  may  be  wasted  by  plausible 
interests,  some  of  which  plead  the  very  name 
of  religion.  It  is  to  show  us  how  much  of  our 
charity  beats  the  air,  how  little  treads  the  solid 
earth.  It  is  to  rouse  us  from  conventionality  and 
routine ;  to  bring  us  to  face  facts ;  and  to  add,  to 
our  love,  commonsense,  originality,  courage. 

There  are  three  things  which  are  at  fault  in  our 
philanthropy. 

First  of  all,  many  of  us  have  a  bias  off  the  prac- 
tical. Reasoning  costs  so  little,  and  talking  costs 
so  little — especially  when  they  are  slack  and 
slovenly — that  we  launch  upon  them,  and  being 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         147 

readily  under  way  with  them,  we  are  prone  to  get 
into  the  habit  of  regarding  all  calls  to  help  as  inter- 
ruptions. With  some  religious  people  the  temper 
grows  so  far  as  to  make  them  timid  about  hard, 
momentous  facts  found  lying  by  their  road  side ; 
so  that  they  swerve,  as  a  horse  swerves,  when  they 
come  across  them.  In  the  last  twenty  years,  the 
Christian  Churches  have  wonderfully  thrown  off 
this  temper;  but  it  is  useless  to  deny  that  large 
portions  of  their  membership  are  still  affected  by 
it ;  and  it  is  needful  to  remind  ourselves,  that, 
however  faithful  we  be  to  the  truths  of  our  religion 
and  the  routine  of  its  worship,  we  are  just  as  apt 
to  shy  at  facts  suddenly  emergent  on  the  road  side 
as  the  Priest  and  Levite  were.  Just  because  we 
are  religious  people  we  have  to  be  on  our  guard 
against  this  temper.  Ask  God  not  only  for 
obedience  and  fidelity,  but  for  courage  and  inven- 
tiveness. For  the  want  of  these  it  is  that  the 
real  needs  of  men  are  to-day  so  often  passed  by. 

Secondly,  we  are  all  somewhat  prone  to  indulg- 
ence in  the  ideal.  And  this  is  the  sin  not  only  of 
religious  people;  but  of  other  humanitarians 
among  us  as  well.  It  is  not  only  Christians 
who    are    tempted    to    sun    themselves    in    the 


148         THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

light  of  Heaven  while  neglecting  the  things 
that  «lic  starved  in  the  shadows  of  earth. 
Secularists  are  quite  as  susceptible  to  so  stupid 
a  selfishness.  In  our  time  there  arc  some 
well-meaning  persons  who  are  satisfied  with 
clear  ideas,  or  clever  formulas  on  the  subject  of 
philanthropy ;  who  never  get  beyond  the  successful 
intellectual  effort,  or  the  satisfaction  of  clear 
feeling.  One  notices  it  with  Positivists  and 
secular  Socialists,  just  as  much  as  with  religious 
formalists  and  persons  given  over  to  "  other 
worldliness."  Sensitive  and  refined  hearts,  they 
welcome  each  new  prospect  of  righteousness  and 
the  commonweal,  opened  in  philosophy  or  litera- 
ture. Week  by  week  they  listen  with  satisfaction 
to  stirring  sermons,  or  month  by  month  cut  up 
their  magazines  and  hug  themselves  in  the  light 
of  some  new  aspect  of  the  social  ideal.  But  they 
never  take  up  their  duty  by  their  own  road  side. 
Now,  it  is  grand  to  look  forward  and  see  the 
heavens  brighten  with  the  dawn  of  a  new  day; 
but  there  never  yet  was  light  upon  the  sky  which 
was  not  meant  to  illuminate  the  ground  about 
our  feet,  and  show  each  of  us  his  bit  of  work 
waiting  for  him  there. 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         149 

Thirdly,  there  is  much  routine,  and  there  arc 
many  conventions,  to  be  obstinately  resisted  and 
overcome  before  we  can  do  our  charitable  duties. 
No  general  principles  can  be  laid  down ;  each  of 
us  must  examine  and  judge  for  himself.  But  it 
is  only  too  evident  that  there  exist  many  socif  i 
fashions,  such  as  the  purely  formal  visits  which  are 
deemed  imperative  among  certain  classes,  extrava- 
gant feasting,  flocking  upon  certain  lines  of  insipid 
or  of  morbid  recreation,  even  the  support  of  some 
political  and  social  institutions ;  which  exhaust 
the  strength,  the  money  and  the  time  that  arc 
needed  for  the  remedy  of  real  evils.  Nor  can 
any  of  us  forget  how  the  mere  fear  of  doing  some- 
thing uncommon  has  often  stayed  our  hands  and 
crushed  our  rising  hearts  in  a  way,  which  has  left 
us  feeling  mean  and  cowardly  for  many  a  day  after  ; 
but  which,  if  persisted  in,  renders  us  in  time 
cruelly  callous.  Perhaps  there  are  no  feelings 
more  easy  for  many  of  us  to  enter  into  than  those 
of  the  Priest,  when  his  body  turned  the  first 
imperceptible  angle  to  the  other  side  of  the  road, 
and  he  found  himself  there  almost  before  he  knew 
he  had  left  that  on  which  his  duty  lay.  Above 
all,    let    not    any    of    us    believe    that    we    have 


I50        THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

exhausted  our  debts  to  our  fellow  men  by  the 
performance  of  our  religious  routine,  or  of  the 
charitable  fashions  of  the  day.  People  of  ami- 
able temper,  and  of  benevolent  intentions,  spend 
their  whole  lives  in  passing  by  their  duty  and 
other  men's  needs.  God  has  given  you  the  hearts 
you  have,  and  has  daily  filled  them  with  the 
means  of  grace,  for  some  higher  purpose  than 
giving  subscriptions.  "  Man,"  says  John  Calvin 
upon  this  parable,  "  was  made  for  the  use  of  man." 
And  you  and  I  have  not  done  our  duty,  and  dare 
not  appear  before  the  Man,  our  Judge,  who  gave 
us  this  Parable,  if  we  have  not,  like  its  hero, 
brought  our  full  manhood  into  the  personal 
service  of  the  needy  and  the  suffering  about 
us. 

Do  you  notice  how  Christ  repeats  the  words, 
he  passed  by.  So  many  of  us  go  on  our  way, 
occupied  with  self,  paying  our  tolls  to  the  cus- 
tomary churches  and  charities,  and  holding  our 
manhood  aloof.  And  thus  the  wrongs  of  the 
world  are  neglected  and  men  suffer  alone,  and 
characters  are  discouraged,  and  lives  drift  past  all 
chance  of  recovery,  and  the  social  problem 
waxes  to  desperation ;    because  each  of  us  singly 


THE   GOOD   SAMARITAN         151 

will  not  render  to  the  wants  by  his  road  side 
that  personal  love  and  attention  which  they 
require. 

It  cannot  remain  unnoticed  by  us  that  the 
charity  which  our  Lord  holds  up  to  our  imitation 
is  that  of  the  individual  heart ;  and  that  He  says 
nothing  of  what  is  so  necessary  in  our  day :  the 
full  discussion  of  philanthropic  methods  and  the 
reasonable  discipline  of  charity.  Nor  does  He  say 
a  word  of  the  duty  of  the  State  with  regard  to  it. 
Charity  organisation  is  of  cardinal  importance; 
otherwise,  like  water  when  it  is  not  confined 
and  guided  by  artificial  means,  the  purest  love 
and  the  most  liberal  intentions  must  grow 
malarious  and  a  menace  to  the  health  of  the  com- 
munity. But  what  Christ  does  in  this  Parable  is  to 
get  behind  all  those  institutions  and  organisations, 
on  which  the  health  and  the  efficiency  of  charity 
depend,  to  that  spring  or  fountain  without  which 
they  are  vain  and  useless :  the  charitable  genius  of 
the  individual.  Here  is  the  illustration  of  what 
He  came  to  earth  to  teach — that,  after  all,  the 
ultimate  source  of  everything  good  and  great  in  the 
world  is  character  and  heart;  the  love  that 
the  individual  has ;  his  vigilance,  his  courage,  his 


152        THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

inventiveness.  And  even  oiir  charity-organisations 
need  that  lesson. 

So  let  us  turn,  in  conclusion,  to  the  Good 
Samaritan  himself. 

We  have  seen  that  Christ  emphasises  that  His 
hero  came  not  of  purpose,  but  that  as  he  journeyed 
on  some  other  pursuit,  he  saw  this  wounded  man 
and  helped  him.  He  is  no  knight  errant  riding 
some  high  horse  of  chivalry  or  adventure.  He 
is  probably  a  plain  commercial  traveller :  a  man 
on  business,  riding  his  own  ass.  He  uses  such 
skill  and  means  as  he  has  with  him,  binding  up  the 
wounds,  drawing  from  his  private  supplies  of  oil  and 
wine,  setting  the  victim  on  his  own  beast  and  paying 
twopence  for  him.  But  he  resolves  also  to  stand 
by  his  patient  and  see  him  through  his  evil  case. 
Take  care  of  hini^  he  says  to  the  innkeeper,  and 
whatsoever  thou  spendest  morey  when  I  come  again 
I  will  repay  thee. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  double  lesson  :  on  the  exceed- 
ing easiness  of  doing  good,  and  on  the  duty  of 
doing  it  thoroughly. 

Love  and  courage  work  with  whatever  is  to 
their  hand ;  and  men  are  helped  not  by  the 
strength  of  our  talents,  or  the  richness  of  our  alms, 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         153 

but  by  the  love  and  energy  we  stir  up  in  ourselves 
and  put  at  their  disposal.  Damaged,  needy,  lonely 
lives  lie  by  every  road  side ;  but  they  are  most 
within  reach  of  the  poor  and  humble.  Wealth  and 
intellectual  eminence  are  not  always  aids  to  that 
personal  service  of  one  heart  by  another  in  which 
philanthropy  consists.  Be  not,  therefore,  dis- 
couraged by  your  humble  capacities ;  but  know 
that  their  very  lowliness  gives  you  opportunities 
of  service  denied  to  the  stronger  and  more 
wealthy. 

But  stand  by  those  whom  you  help  till  you  see 
them  through.  Else  it  were  almost  better  you 
never  touched  them.  Of  fitful  and  inadequate 
relief  a  witty  Frenchman  has  said,  that  it  creates 
one-half  of  the  misery  it  relieves,  but  cannot 
relieve  one-half  of  the  misery  it  creates. 

But  the  Parable,  some  have  said,  does  not  tell 
us  how  to  get  the  heart  which  was  in  this  good 
Samaritan.  All  it  shows  us  is  a  man  whose  heart 
and  conscience  were  on  the  spot;  who  did  his 
duty,  where  others,  more  religiously  equipped, 
failed  in  theirs.  The  man  was  in  religion  a 
poor  Samaritan,  with  but  a  part  of  the  Bible — 
nothing  more  than  the  Pentateuch ;  a  half-Pagan, 


154        THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN 

of  whom  Christ  Himself  said  :  Te  know  not  what 
ye  worship^  salvation  is  of  the  Jews.  Where  then 
did  he  get  this  heart,  which  the  Lord  sets  up  as  our 
example  ?  Did  it,  too,  like  so  much  in  the  Parable, 
come  down  that  road  by  chance?  Or  are  we  to 
draw  the  lesson — enforced  by  many  to-day — 
that  religion  is  not  at  all  necessary  for  philan- 
thropy, and  that  we  are  to  fall  back  upon  the 
unsophisticated  human  affections  when  we  want 
grace  and  motive  to  make  us  helpers  of  men  ? 

To  those  who  talk  thus,  let  us  reply :  Who  then 
created  the  Good  Samaritan?  Who  was  his 
original?  We  must  look  from  the  hero,  to  the 
Maker  of  the  Parable.  Our  fathers  used  to  see 
Christ  in  the  Good  Samaritan  to  the  extent  of 
making  the  whole  story  an  allegory  of  our  Lord's 
saving  work  for  men.  You  remember  the  details. 
The  man  who  fell  among  robbers  was  any  sinner 
in  the  misery  of  his  sins.  Priest  and  Levite  were 
the  institutions  of  the  Old  Testament — Law  and 
Prophecy  passing  helplessly  by.  Christ  was  the 
Good  Samaritan.  The  oil  and  wine  were  the 
Sacraments ;  the  Inn  was  the  Church ;  the  pro- 
mise was  that  of  Christ's  prevailing  grace.  It  was 
overdone,  of  course,  but  it  had  this  truth,  that 


THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN         155 

there  was  nothing  in  the  Parable  which  did  not  come 
from  Christ  Himself.  The  Good  Samaritan  is  the 
product  neither  of  the  Pentateuch  nor  of  the 
"  unsophisticated  human  affections,"  but  of  the 
mind  of  Jesus.  And  it  is  that  mind  which  we 
must  seek  for  ourselves  if  we  would  share  the 
love,  the  courage,  the  sanity  and  effective- 
ness of  the  hero  it  has  created.  These  qualities 
show  their  brightest  example  in  Christ  Himself ;  in 
His  attitude  towards  men ;  in  the  methods  of  His 
ministry,  and  in  the  Spirit  of  His  Cross.  From 
no  other  source  can  we  draw  them  so  fully  as  from 
our  own  experience  of  the  descent  of  His  Love 
upon  our  helplessness,  and  of  His  power  to  save 
and  to  heal.  Look,  I  say,  to  the  Author  of  the 
Parable.  He,  who  conceived  the  Good  Samaritan 
as  a  figure  in  a  tale,  has  created  and  still  creates,  in 
real  life,  characters  and  services  as  noble  as  his. 


IX 


TO   HIM   THAT   OVERCOMETH 

To  him  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life,  which  is  in  the 
Paradise  of  God. 

He  that  overcometh  shall  not  be  hurt  of  the  second  death. 

To  him  that  overcometh,  to  him  will  I  give  of  the  hidden 
manna,  and  I  will  give  him  a  white  stone,  and  upon  the 
stone  a  new  name  written,  which  no  one  knoweth  but  he 
that  receiveth  it. 

And  he  that  overcometh  and  he  that  keepeth  my  works  unto 
the  end,  to  him  will  I  give  authority  over  the  nations.  . . . 
And  I  will  give  him  the  morning  star. 

He  that  overcometh  shall  thus  be  arrayed  in  white  garments ; 
and  I  will  in  no  wise  blot  his  name  out  of  the  book  of 
life,  and  I  will  confess  his  name  before  my  Father,  and 
before  His  angels. 

He  that  overcometh,  I  will  make  him  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of 
my  God,  and  he  shall  go  out  thence  no  more ;  and  I  will 
write  upon  him  the  name  of  my  God,  and  the  name  of 
the  city  of  my  God,  the  new  Jerusalem,  which  cometh 
down  out  of  heaven  from  my  God,  and  mine  own 
name. 


TO   HIM    THAT   OVERCOMETH    157 

He  that  overcometh,  I  will  give  to  him  to  sit  down  with  me 
on  my  throne,  as  I  also  overcame  and  sat  down  with  my 
Father  on  His  throne. 

— Rbvblation  ii.  7,  ii,  17,  26,  28  ;  iii.  $,  is,  11. 

TTE  who  comes  to  his  fellow-men  with  such 
-■--■■  promises  as  these  feels  himself,  as  he 
delivers  them,  possessed  of  a  great  certainty.  He 
has  the  assurance  that  every  man  to  whom  he 
utters  such  a  promise  needs  it,  knows  what  it 
means,  and  knows  that  it  is  meant  for  him.  Not 
one  of  us  who  has  ears  to  hear  these  words  but 
has  an  experience  behind  to  understand  them,  a 
conscience  that  feels  their  obligation,  and  a  sense 
of  danger  that  must  welcome  their  high,  triumphant 
tone.  What  struggle  do  you  struggle  with,  as  I 
with  mine  ?  What  foes  do  you  sharpen  conscience 
upon — sharpen  conscience  upon  or  break  its  edge  ? 
Let  these  things  be  known  to  ourselves  and  God. 
The  rest  is  enough.  We  are  all  soldiers  in  the 
same  war,  and  our  Lord's  sevenfold  promise  comes 
to  each  of  us. 

That  is  the  reason  why  we  should  take  not  only 
one  but  all  the  seven  promises  together.  A  great 
part  of  the  force  of  their  appeal  lies  in  the 
constancy  and  impartiality  with  which  it  is  made 


158    TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH 

to  individuals  of  such  various  moral  circumstance 
and  opportunity.  Here  are  seven  Churches  in 
seven  strongly  distinguished  towns.  In  some  the 
general  life  is  strenuous  and  progressive.  In 
others  there  is  no  advance  on  the  main  issues,  but, 
at  least,  purity,  a  humble  ministry  in  little  things 
and  patience.  Others  are  delinquent  or  asleep. 
Others  are  tolerant  of  even  horrid  vice.  The 
climate  of  one  is  persecution,  of  another  as  fatal 
luxury.  Here  the  danger  is  material  wealth,  there 
an  intellectual  license  which  frankly  denies  the 
moral  law.  But  no  matter  what  be  the  environ- 
ment, atmosphere  and  temptations  of  these  seven 
communities,  when  all  is  admitted  and  allowed  for 
by  Him  who  searches  the  heart.  His  call  comes 
impartially  to  every  individual  of  them :  that  for 
him  everything  shall  turn  on  his  own  ethical 
warfare  and  victory.  All  had  not  the  same  moral 
opportunity.  Which  of  us  would  not  rather  have 
belonged  to  the  Church  of  Philadelphia  than  to  that 
of  Laodicea  ?  A  man  must  more  easily  have  held 
his  soul  in  the  troubled,  dying  congregation  of 
Smyrna,  where  all  the  enemies  were  outside,  than 
in  the  great,  cold  church  of  Sardis,  which  had  the 
name  to  live,  but  was  really  dead.     Yet  He  who 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    159 

knew  the  greatly  difFering  chances  of  each  member, 
and  describes  them,  adds  that,  irrespective  of  them 
all,  the  individual  will  be  judged  by  the  warfare 
and  issue  of  His  own  faith  and  conscience.  To 
him  that  overcometh!  To  him  that  overcometh! 
The  moral  obligation  and  responsibility  of  the 
individual  could  not  be  more  powerfully  impressed 
upon  our  minds  than  by  this  high,  clear  call, 
repeated  seven  times  across  that  awful  difference 
of  advantage  and  opportunity. 

And  it  is  still  the  same  as  it  was  then.  The 
persecutions  are  impossible,  the  names  and  forms 
of  the  heresies  so  dead,  that  we  can  hardly  under- 
stand what  some  of  them  taught.  But  putting 
such  ancient  things  aside,  the  rest  of  the  picture  is 
of  to-day  and  of  ourselves.  Here  are  weariness  and 
the  loss  of  early  enthusiasm ;  a  few  virtues  kept 
shining  on  the  face  of  a  general  dilapidation. 
There  is  a  grinding  poverty  with  no  material  hope 
about  it.  Or  there  are  brave  works  in  lonely  ways, 
what  the  letter  to  Ephesus  describes  as  toil  and 
patience ;  but  with  no  sense  of  influence  upon  the 
great  human  issues:  the  causes,  on  which  Christ 
promised  His  people  the  victory  over  the  world. 
Or  there  are  the  bulk  and  frankness  of  certain  evils ; 


i6o    TO   HIM    THAT   OVERCOMETH 

their  tyranny  on  public  opinion ;  and,  on  the  other 
side,  the  nerveless  tolerance  of  sin  and  indifference 
to  suffering  on  the  part  of  those  who  should  be 
most  forward  to  combat  and  to  heal.  Or  there  is 
the  drab  of  so  much  of  our  Christianity;  the 
commonplace  or  even  shabbiness  of  character  that 
clothes  it :  in  the  great,  grey  crowds  only  a  few  who 
walk  in  white  garments,  unselfish  and  ardent. 
But  above  and  through  these  details,  are  we  not 
most  haunted  by  the  presence  of  an  awful  inequality 
of  moral  advantage :  the  terrible  chance,  which 
appears  to  reign  in  a  sphere  in  which  chance  ought, 
to  our  thinking,  to  be  impossible :  the  irresistible 
bias  to  evil,  which  from  birth  impedes  millions  of 
characters  ? 

Indeed,  in  some  respects  this  is  worse  to  us  than 
it  was  within  that  single  Roman  province  to  which 
the  Seven  Churches  belonged.  We  have,  at  least, 
three  great  aggravations  of  the  evil. 

Some  of  those  Churches  were  troubled  by  a 
licentious  sect  proclaiming  liberty  from  the  moral 
law.  But  in  place  of  such  a  narrow  faction,  we  are 
exposed  to  a  pervasive  tendency  of  thought  with 
the  same  corrupt  intentions.  As  Dr.  Martineau 
put  it :  "  There  is  a  remarkable  intellectual  subtlety 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    i6i 

engaged  now-a-days  in  perplexing  men's  moral 
convictions."  It  is  not  the  relaxation  of  this  or 
that  doctrine,  but  the  loosening  of  moral  faith, 
the  fluctuating  vision  of  the  boundary  between 
right  and  wrong ;  the  clever  and  mischievous  readi- 
ness to  argue  for  any  line  of  conduct,  irrespective 
of  its  goodness;  and  the  growing  curiosity  to 
describe  and  explain  immoral  phenomena,  which 
appears,  in  the  interest  of  art,  to  absorb  all  sense  of 
duty  in  the  observer  to  pass  judgment  upon 
them.  Altogether  we  see  the  same  antinomianism 
as  of  old,  but  instead  of  presenting  itself  in  the 
ridiculous  excesses  of  a  fanatical  coterie,  it  assumes 
the  aspect  of  an  aesthetic  or  philosophic  temper,  and 
insinuates  its  scepticism  into  the  very  shrine  of 
reason. 

Then  again,  as  we  all  know,  certain  misinterpre- 
tations of  science  are  replacing  in  the  popular  mind 
the  moral  convictions  of  religion  ;  and  among  other 
things  the  old  instinct  of  the  responsibility  of  the 
individual  for  his  character — an  instinct  which 
often  survived  in  the  past  even  where  faith  in  God 
and  in  a  future  life  had  been  weakened — is  dis- 
appearing before  impressions  of  the  individual's 
moral   helplessness   under   the   influence   of   past 

h 


1 62    TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH 

generations  and  of  the  state  of  society  about  him. 
The  doctrine  of  moral  heredity  is  spreading.  But 
it  is  not  enough  to  tell  the  crowd  that  the  wholesale 
deductions  which  they  have  assumed  from  the 
observations  of  science  are  unfounded,  and  indeed 
disclaimed  by  science  itself,  which  is  not  yet  sure  of 
the  facts  of  heredity,  and  by  no  means  shuts 
up  the  individual  to  a  moral  fate  determined 
for  him  by  the  habits  of  his  ancestors.  We  have 
to  face  a  much  more  terrible  foe  to  the  sense  of 
individual  responsibility  than  the  influence  of 
scientific  teaching  about  heredity.  This  is  the  prac- 
tical experience  of  great  masses  of  our  people.  The 
degrading  environment  which  portions  of  our 
population  inhabit ;  the  rigour  of  their  poverty ; 
some  of  the  economic  conditions  imposed  upon 
their  toil ;  the  early  familiarity  with  vice  on  the 
part  of  a  proportion  of  the  children  of  our  great 
cities ;  the  temptations  to  drunkenness  and  other 
sins,  often  so  abounding  that  any  growth  of 
character  among  them  may  be  said  to  be  impossible 
— all  these  form  conditions  extremely  favourable 
to  the  spread  of  moral  fatalism.  We  all  know 
how  the  study  of  the  physical  universe,  apart  from 
the  ethical  interests  and  sympathies  at  work  upon 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    163 

it,  may  depress  the  moral  faith  of  even  the  strongest 
of  intellects.  But  let  us  also  remember,  that 
in  the  case  of  the  far  weaker  minds  of  the  common 
people,  such  an  infection,  caught  by  some  of  them 
from  above,  is  enforced  day  by  day  by  social  and 
economic  experiences,  from  which  moral  freedom 
and  moral  hope  often  appear  to  have  utterly 
vanished. 

Yet,  thirdly,  it  is  not  only  in  sceptical  minds, 
nor  only  among  the  more  servile  conditions  of  our 
social  life  that  the  individual's  sense  of  his  duty 
and  of  his  power  to  work  out  his  salvation  is 
disappearing.  There  is  also  a  dangerous  slackening 
of  this  sense  among  people  who  would  not  for 
anything  give  up  religion,  and  whose  circumstances 
are  not  hard.  A  great  many  persons  now-a-days 
accept  the  social  teaching  and  practice  of  Christian- 
ity, while  ignoring  on  the  one  hand  the  religious 
facts  from  which  these  have  derived  most  of  their 
influence  over  the  human  mind,  and  on  the  other 
the  personal  experiment  and  discipline  by  which 
individuals  have  assimilated  the  meaning  of  these 
facts,  and  have  thereby  become  agents  in  the 
regeneration  of  society.  Such  facile  minds 
accept   the  liberties,   the  charities,   the   domestic 


t64    TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH 

cleanness  and  security  which  they  heartily 
acknowledge  only  Christianity  could  have  forced 
on  a  reluctant  world.  But  they  appear  to 
deem  it  no  longer  necessary  for  themselves 
to  undergo  the  personal  discipline — the  peni- 
tence, the  conversion,  the  prayer,  the  moral 
struggles — by  which  alone  she  effected  that  result. 
Are  we  not  all  tempted  to  this?  The  most  of  us 
religious  people  are  the  easy  heirs  from  our  fathers 
of  habits  of  life,  of  affections,  and  of  mental 
attitudes,  which  we  are  apt  to  think  reproduce 
themselves  from  generation  to  generation.  And 
so  we  let  them  run,  and  feel  no  need,  for  our  own 
wills  and  hearts,  of  that  self-examination  and 
devotion,  through  which  our  fathers  won  the 
power  to  create  the  fashion  and  tradition  of  them. 
Thus,  you  see,  over  all  varieties  of  moral 
opportunity  and  advantage  which  prevail  in  the 
present  day,  alike  at  both  extremes  of  our  social 
life,  there  is  a  great  slackening,  to  say  the  least,  of 
the  sense  of  personal  religious  responsibility. 
Everywhere  we  need  this  sevenfold  call  of  Christ — 
Unto  him  that  overcometh!  For  it  is  just  with  us 
as  with  these  seven  Asian  Churches.  Whether  we 
have  great  ethical  advantages,  or  whether  by  our 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    165 

social  conditions  we  arc  deprived  of  these,  our 
besetting  danger  is  to  forget  the  duty  and  the 
power  of  character  that  lies  with  each  of  us.  We 
ignore  the  fact  that  the  progress  of  the  race,  as 
well  as  of  ourselves,  depends  upon  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  each  of  us  takes  up  and  pursues 
his  individual  warfare. 

The  obligation  to  this  is  supreme,  and  not 
analysable.  It  comes  from  conscience,  and  it  comes 
from  Christ.  History  is  the  proof  of  it ;  it  is 
vindicated  by  human  experience ;  it  is  explained 
and  becomes  clear  by  obedience.  Hesitate  before 
this  duty,  be  content  with  questioning  it,  and  you 
will  never  penetrate  its  secret.  But  accept  the  call, 
act  upon  it,  and  you  understand  it  and  experience 
its  reality.  For  the  truth  of  it  is  proved  to  you 
by  this,  that  to  obey  gives  you  a  new  conscience 
and  braces  every  working  nerve  you  have ;  that  if 
you  were  asleep  it  makes  you  ashamed,  if  you  were 
in  despair  it  lifts  you  to  hope. 

This  is,  indeed,  what  the  richness  and  variety  of 
the  seven  promises  lay  before  us.  I  do  not  propose 
to  follow  them  in  detail.  Let  us  be  satisfied  with 
a  few  of  their  contents. 

The  most  evident  and  often-repeated  element  of 


1 66    TO    HIM    THAT   OVERCOMETH 

these  promises  is  the  gift  of  life — here  and  here- 
after. To  him  that  over  come  th  I  will  give  to  eat 
of  the  tree  of  life;  the  hidden  manna;  a  white 
stone^  and  on  the  stone  a  new  name  writteny 
authority  over  the  nationSy  the  morning  star,  the 
name  of  my  God  and  my  own  new  name — to  htm 
that  overcometh.  And  it  is  eternal :  He  shall  not 
he  hurt  of  the  second  death;  I  will  in  no  wise  blot 
his  name  out  of  the  book  of  life ;  1  will  give  him 
to  sit  down  with  me  on  my  throne.  Here  is  life 
in  all  its  range  and  detail :  in  all  its  clear  meaning 
and  wide  power :  life  nourished  here  from 
stage  to  stage  by  the  daily  manna,  life  through  all 
eternity. 

But  how  hard  a  promise  it  is :  leaving  all  with 
ourselves!  Christ  does  not  say  here — I  qtivc  tnee 
life  that  thou  mayest  overcome.  But  overcome 
and  the  life  will  be  thine.  The  responsibility,  the 
start,  the  strain  He  leaves  upon  our  own  wills; 
even  as  His  apostle  intends,  where  he  says,  not 
accept  the  faith,  but  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith. 
Yes  it  is  stern ;  but  how  true  to  our  experience. 
For  didst  thou  ever  pass  through  a  temptation  in 
which  thou  didst  not  feel :  Here  even  God  cannot 
go  before  me,  nor  stand  instead  of  me.     Otherwise 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    167 

it  were  not  worth  the  name  of  temptation  ;  it  were 
not  in  any  wise  thy  temptation.  For  who  is  it  that 
is  to  be  tempted,  tested,  put  to  proof  and  trial? 
Is  it  God  or  Christ?  It  is  thou,  thyself.  But 
precisely  as  thou  awakest  to  this ;  precisely  as  the 
loneliness  and  rigour  of  such  an  experience  come 
home  to  thee,  God  has  begun  to  fulfil  His  promise 
of  life.  For  it  is  in  the  bare  realisation  of  thyself 
— and  all  the  more,  let  me  say,  if  it  even  come  upon 
thee  for  the  moment  without  any  religious  mitiga- 
tion of  its  solitude  and  its  pain — it  is  in  this  very 
moment,  of  lonely  responsibility  and  unmitigated 
strain,  that  life  begins. 

It  is  the  necessity  and  prerogative  of  our  man- 
hood that  in  its  moral  conflicts,  God  who  has 
assuredly  called  us  and  is  ready  to  help  us,  must 
wait  for  a  decision  and  victory  which  shall  be  our 
own.  However  clear  His  call — and  all  our 
salvation  starts  from  that — however  near  His  help ; 
we  have  got  to  decide,  we  have  got  to  overcome. 
So  was  it  with  the  great  prophets  long  ago. 
Isaiah  received  his  commission  through  a  question 
— Whom  shall  we  sendy  and  who  will  go  for  us  f — 
which  waited  for  an  answer  from  himself. 
Jeremiah,  conscious  of  his  fluid  temper  and  poor 


1 68    TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH 

gifts,  and  shrinking  from  the  office  to  which  he 
was  summoned,  heard  the  words — Be  not  dismayed 
lest  I  make  thee  dismayed  before  them.  Terrible 
words  leaving  so  much  with  himself!  And 
Ezekiel,  prostrate  before  the  rush  of  life  and 
power  which  filled  his  vision  of  the  Universe, 
heard  the  call — Son  of  Man^  stand  upon  thy  feet^ 
and  I  will  speak  with  thee.  God  who  has  called  us, 
waits  upon  the  start  of  our  effort ;  respecting,  nay 
proving  to  us,  the  freedom  of  the  soul  He  has 
created  in  His  own  image.  Do  not  suppose  this 
is  to  take  away  the  spring  of  our  salvation  from 
Himself  and  to  start  it  within  man.  For  this  bare 
realisation  of  our  freedom  and  our  duty  is  just  the 
beginning,  the  necessary  beginning,  of  His  gift  of 
life  to  us :  and  could  have  come  to  us  in  no  other 
way. 

And  so,  after  the  start,  throughout  the  whole 
of  our  moral  growth.  Quietists  quote  our  Lord's 
text — Consider  the  lilies  how  they  grow;  they 
toil  noty  neither  do  they  spin^ — ^as  if  this  were 
a  direction  for  our  inward  life,  and  that,  there- 
fore, all  our  duty  were  to  get  into  the  proper 
conditions  for  growing,  while  He  who  is  His 
people's  sun  and  shield  shelters  and  ripens  us. 


TO    HIM   THAT   OVERCOMETH    169 

They  forget  that  our  Lord  was  talking  of  our 
physical  life,  our  growth  in  stature,  and  our  labour 
for  food  and  raiment,  but  not  of  the  training  of 
our  will  and  our  decision  between  right  and  wrong. 
Here  let  Himself  be  our  example,  whose  whole 
life  on  earth  was  a  warfare  with  the  powers  of  evil ; 
who  found  its  crises  and  its  agonies  in  the  hours 
when  He  was  alone  with  the  Father ;  who  in  the 
days  of  His  flesh  offered  up  prayers  and  suppli- 
cations with  strong  crying  and  tears  .  .  .  and  was 
heard  in  that  He  feared.  Him  let  us  follow  who 
was  tempted  in  all  things  like  as  we  are,  till  by 
feeling  our  fellowship  with  Him  in  agony  and  the 
awful  difficulty  of  doing  the  Father's  will,  we  shall 
also  share  His  faith  that  we  have  got  this  conflict 
to  endure  just  because  we  can  bear  it,  just  because 
of  our  freedom,  and  just  in  order  to  realise  that 
we  are  alive.  As  1  also  overcame^  and  sat  down 
with  my  Father  on  His  throne, 

Christ's  promise,  however,  is  fulfilled  to  us  not 
only  in  the  blast  and  crisis  of  the  storm  by  this 
primary  sense  of  an  individuality,  which  He 
honours  us  by  calling  as  distinct  as  His  own ;  but 
by  further  gifts  of  aU  that  makes  the  life  of  a  man 
fresh,  confident  and  happy.     Men  yield  to  sin  for 


I70    TO    HIM    THAT   OVERCOMETH 

the  sake  of  life :  for  richer  food,  and  a  faster  pulse ; 
for  power  to  outrace  conscience  and  rise  above 
circumstance;  for  a  deeper  joy;  for  a  wider  and 
more  varied  knowledge ;  for  visions  of  beauty 
and  draughts  of  power.  O,  my  brothers,  let  us 
understand  that  when  life  comes  this  way,  it  comes 
but  in  drops,  and  only  for  moments ;  passing  from 
us  as  swiftly  as  it  came,  and  leaving  our  minds  and 
wills  to  tremble  before  duty  or  disaster.  Such  life 
is  not  food,  but  a  false  stimulus :  betraying  us  just 
when  we  most  need  the  strength  which  it  pretended. 
But  the  life  which  those  enjoy  who  overcome  is,  as 
Christ  calls  it,  a  manna,  given  daily  and  unfailing. 
After  every  temptation  conquered,  after  every  self- 
indulgence  refused,  after  every  duty  accepted  and 
patiently  performed,  we  do  feel  this  life,  in  a 
hundred  fresh  impulses  of  moral  vigour  and 
hopefulness.  He  who  conquers  is  a  new  man — 
fresh,  elastic,  confident.  The  skies  are  bright 
above  him,  and  his  heart  is  clear  within.  There 
is  given  to  him  an  enjoyment  of  God's  world 
denied  to  other  men  ;  and  at  the  same  time  a  power 
of  patience  with  things  that  are  evil,  for  he  has 
already  conquered  these  in  himself,  and  knows  that 
their  day  is  determined.     What  a  generous  trust 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    171 

in  others  our  victories  over  ourselves  give  us! 
What  an  eye  for  the  good  that  is  in  them !  What 
a  power  of  encouraging  that  good !  While  about 
us  is  the  atmosphere  of  peace  which  springs  from 
the  faith  that  God  reigns  1  /  will  give  him  the 
Morning  Star. 

If  such  elements  of  life  be  given  daily,  so  that 
by  them  we  grow  from  one  power  of  character  and 
one  stage  of  joy  to  another ;  they  also  carry  with 
them  the  assurance  of  eternity.  This  is  not  an 
easy  assurance,  when  you  seek  to  present  the 
intellectual  grounds  for  it.  The  philosophy  of  it 
is  by  no  means  clear.  But  I  am  speaking  of  those 
instincts  of  immortality  which  spring  from  the 
conquest  of  evil.  Nothing  can  rqb  a  man  of  that 
sense  of  his  individuality  which  comes  upon 
him  as  he  humbly  passes,  conscious  of  his  union 
with  Christ  in  God,  from  a  moral  victory.  He 
knows  what  Christ  means  by  the  words,  /  will  give 
him  to  sit  down  with  me  on  my  throne^  as  I  also 
overcame  and  sat  down  with  my  Father  on  His 
throne.  If  there  are  moments,  in  which  it  is 
granted  to  our  flesh  to  feel  itself  the  tabernacle  of 
an  eternal  Spirit,  they  come  after  the  conquest  of 
temptation. 


172    TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH 

Life,  then,  is  most  deeply  felt,  and  most  richly 
enjoyed,  by  him  who  has  overcome.  But  it  is 
just  another  way  of  stating  the  same  fact  to  say 
that  by  him  also  it  is  most  clearly  read  and  under- 
stood. To  the  victor  our  Lord  does  not  promise 
a  famous  life,  whose  story  all  the  world  shall  read ; 
nor  even  one  that  his  own  fellows  shall  understand, 
but  what  is  far  better,  a  life  whose  meaning  and 
whose  title  shall  be  very  legible  to  himself.  /  will 
give  him  a  white  stone,  and  on  the  stone  a  new 
name  written,  which  no  one  knoweth  but  he 
that  receiveth  it.  When  others  by  declining  the 
moral  battle  or  yielding  to  self-indulgence  shall 
inevitably  forfeit  not  only  the  capacity  for  long 
views  and  consistent  purpose  in  life,  but  also  most 
of  their  interest  in  life's  present  engagements  and 
duties;  his  mental  interest  in  things  about  him, 
and  in  the  experiences  which  happen  to  him ;  the 
freshness  of  his  mind  to  the  daily  routine ;  his 
powers  of  judgment  and  moral  criticism ;  his 
appreciation  of  the  order  and  legibleness  of  his  own 
past ;  his  faith  in  the  Wisdom  which  directs  him ; 
his  persuasion  that  he  is  in  God's  love  and  guidance 
— shall  constantly  increase. 

Is  all   this   selfish .?     By   no   means :    there   is 


TO    HIM    THAT    OVERCOMETH    173 

no  other  course  of  conduct  by  which  we  can  do 
more  good  to  the  race.  In  these  days  when 
schemes  of  social  service  and  social  organisation 
are  being  multiplied,  and  rightly  multiplied,  there 
is  danger  of  our  forgetting  the  essential  need  of 
personal  character  trained  in  the  Christian  discipline 
and  rich  with  the  fruits  of  personal  experience  of 
the  grace  of  God  and  the  conquest  of  evil.  To 
him  that  overcomethy  to  him  will  I  give  authority 
over  nations.  What  kind  of  authority  our  Lord 
means  we  may  understand  from  his  other  words : 
Whosoever  would  become  great  among  you  shall 
be  your  servant^  and  whosoever  would  be  first 
among  you  shall  be  your  slave:  even  as  the  Son  of 
Man  came  not  to  be  served^  but  to  serve  and  to 
give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.  It  was  by 
overcoming  that  Jesus  won  His  power  of  service ; 
and  as  the  Master  so  shall  His  disciples  be. 

Such  a  character,  as  these  His  seven  promises 
describe,  is  at  once  the  most  adequate  inspiration 
for  social  service,  and  the  most  infectious  power 
for  good  in  the  lives  of  others. 


X 

ESAU 

Lest  there  be  any  .  .  .  profane  person,  as  Esau,  who  for  one 
mess  of  meat  sold  his  own  birthright. — Hebrews  xii.  i6. 

T  N  all  Scripture  there  are  few  characters  more  pro- 
-■'  fitable  for  our  study  than  the  elder  son  of  Isaac 
and  Rebekah.  The  composite  form  in  which  his 
story  has  reached  us  was  not  finished  for  hundreds 
of  years  after  the  era  to  which  he  belonged.  And, 
it  may  be,  those  are  right  who  assert  that  there  have 
been  painted  into  the  portrait  of  the  man  features 
derived  from  the  probable  etymologies  of  the 
names  of  his  descendants — for  Edom  may  mean 
red;  Esau  and  Seir  (the  land  he  inhabited)  may 
mean  hairy — and  that  his  character  is,  in  part,  the 
reflection  of  the  qualities  which  his  descendants 
developed  in  opposition  to  Israel. 

The  two  nations,  Edom  and  Israel,  obviously 
sprang   from  a   common   stock;   and   they  were 


ESAU  175 

neighbours.  Yet  in  the  lands  they  occupied,  in 
the  pursuits  they  followed,  and  in  the  national 
tempers  they  developed,  they  offered  to  each  other 
a  remarkable  contrast.  Early  Israel  were  shep- 
herds :  plain  men^  that  is  quiet  and  peaceable^ 
dwelling  in  tents;  but  far-sighted,  patient  and 
subtle  :  natural  qualities  which,  under  the  influence 
of  the  Revelation  given  to  them,  developed 
into  the  most  extraordinary  genius  for  religion 
which  any  nation  has  ever  exhibited.  The  Edom- 
ites,  on  the  other  hand,  were  at  first  little  more 
than  hunters  and  warriors,  of  an  impulsive  and 
desperate  temper — a  temper,  like  their  land,  full  of 
precipices,  and  bare,  too,  of  the  more  spiritual 
elements  of  character.  They  had  their  gods  and 
their  high  places,  of  course ;  but  their  religion  is 
singular  among  those  of  the  peoples  of  Syria  in 
exerting  almost  no  fascination  on  Israel's  mind. 
The  Edomites  do  not  appear  to  have  had  any 
faculty  in  that  direction.  The  few  personages  they 
gave  to  history,  among  whom  the  Herods  are 
conspicuous,  were  coarse,  unscrupulous,  ruthless, 
without  any  interest  in  religion,  except  what  was 
dictated  by  policy.  No  better  word  could  describe 
this  people  than  profane. 


176  ESAU 

Yet  the  parallel  between  Esau  and  the  nation 
he  founded  is  far  from  perfect.  Some  of  their 
qualities  do  not  appear  in  his  portrait:  their 
commercial  gifts,  the  worldly  wisdom  for  which 
they  were  famed,  and  that  brazen  pitilessness  which 
the  prophets  and  psalmists,  from  many  centuries, 
unanimously  attributed  to  them.  The  Esau  of 
our  story  is  a  facile  character,  simple  and  placable. 
Such  a  difference  is  hardly  explained  by  the  theory, 
that  those  notorious  qualities  of  the  Edomites 
were  not  thrust  upon  the  experience  of  Israel 
till  after  the  composition  of  Esau's  picture;  but 
rather  by  the  fact  that  his  story  as  it  stands  is  not 
the  reflection,  always  more  or  less  vague,  of  the 
surface  of  a  nation ;  but  the  record,  keener,  deeper 
and  more  tragic,  of  the  character  and  experience  of 
an  individual.  In  this  lies  its  value  for  ourselves. 
Whether  we  look  at  his  circumstances,  or  his 
chances,  or  his  temper,  or  the  line  along  which 
the  tragedy  of  his  life  is  drawn,  we  find  with  Esau 
more  that  resembles  the  pitiful  facts  and  solemn 
possibilities  of  our  own  experience  than  we  do  with 
almost  any  other  character  in  either  of  the 
Testaments.  Here  is  a  man  who  was  not  an 
insane  or  monstrous  sinner — 9.  Lucifer  felling  from 


ESAU  177 

heaven — ^but  who  came  to  sin  in  the  common, 
human  way ;  by  birth  into  it,  by  the  sins  of  others 
as  well  as  his  own,  by  every-day  and  sordid 
temptations,  by  carelessness  and  the  sudden 
surprise  of  neglected  passions.  Esau  is  not  a 
repulsive  but  an  attractive  man ;  and  we  know 
that  if  we  are  to  learn  from  any  character  our  love 
must  be  awake,  and  take  her  share  in  the  task. 
There  is  everything  to  engage  us  in  the  study 
of  him.  The  mystery  which  shrouds  all  human 
sin,  our  own  experience  of  temptation,  the 
regret  we  feel  for  so  wronged  and  genial  a 
nature — may  these  only  serve  to  make  more  clear 
to  us  the  central  want  and  blame  of  his  life.  For 
this  may  be  our  own. 


First,  then,  Esau  was  sinned  against  from  his 
birth.  The  problems  of  heredity  and  of  a  stress 
of  temptation,  for  which  he  was  not  to  blame, 
appear  in  his  case  from  the  first.  His  father  and 
mother  were  responsible  for  much  of  the  character 
of  their  son.  It  is  strange  that  in  the  marriage 
service  of  the  Church  of  England,  the  example  of 
Isaac  and  Rebekah  should  be  invoked  for  every 

M 


178  ESAU 

new  husband  and  wife.  Isaac's  and  Rebekah's  life 
was  the  spoiling  of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  idylls 
ever  opened  on  this  earth  of  ours.  Their  love 
began  in  a  romance,  and  ended  in  vulgarity.  It 
began  with  the  most  honourable  plighting  of  troth, 
and  it  ended  in  the  most  sordid  querulousness  and 
falsehood.  That  can  only  have  been,  because  from 
the  first,  with  all  its  grace  and  wonder,  the  fear  of 
God  was  not  present ;  because  with  the  romance 
there  was  no  religion,  and  with  the  giving  of  the 
one  heart  to  the  other  there  was  no  surrender  of 
both  to  God.  It  was  very  picturesque  for  a  man 
to  come  over  the  horizon  on  a  camel,  to  surprise 
this  girl  at  her  domestic  service,  and  to  carry  her 
off  so  quickly  to  a  home  of  her  own.  But 
what  availed  it  all,  if  she  did  not  feel  that  God 
Himself  had  come  with  His  messenger,  and  did 
not  go  forth  as  in  God's  guidance  ?  Of  course,  it 
thrilled  a  girl's  heart  to  be  told  how  she  had  been 
dreamt  of  and  sought  for  so  far  away.  But  if, 
with  the  pride  of  such  a  moment,  there  was  mixed 
no  awe,  no  conscience,  no  strife  to  be  worthy  of  it ; 
then  disillusion  was  sure  to  follow.  The  nemesis 
of  picturesqueness  without  truth  is  sordidness ;  the 
nemesis  of  romance  without  religion  is  vulgarity. 


ESAU  179 

And  vulgarity  and  sordidness  are  the  prevailing 
aspects  of  Isaac's  and  Rebekah's  wedded  life.  We 
see  a  divided  house ;  the  father  and  older  son  on 
one  side,  the  mother  and  younger  son  on  the  other  ; 
the  father  unable  to  bless  his  children  till  he  has 
enjoyed  a  favourite  dish ;  the  mother  taking 
advantage  of  her  husband's  blindness  to  cheat  him 
and  her  older  son,  and  training  the  younger  to  a 
selfish  and  cruel  dissimulation.  What  is  Rebekah  ? 
The  girl,  whose  pure  heart  leapt  at  the  stranger's 
story  of  love,  is  become  the  exaggerating,  lying  old 
woman.  It  is  the  result  of  living  on  mere  feeling. 
No  matter  how  pure  a  boy's  and  a  girl's  hearts  may 
be,  no  matter  how  honourable  the  love  that  makes 
them  leap — if  the  pride  of  it  and  the  sweetness  of 
it  be  all  they  feel,  disillusion  and  degeneracy  are 
certainly  ahead.  It  is  not  the  wonder  nor  the 
passion  of  a  love  that  will  save  it :  but  the  religion 
that  is  in  it,  the  conscience,  the  awe. 

Of  such  a  mother  Esau  was  born.  He  never 
showed  her  falseness,  but  he  had  all  her  irreligion 
and  all  her  haste,  and  he  proved  it  with  his  man's 
strength.  In  her  it  had  been  an  easy  sense  of  the 
meaning  and  consequences  of  sin;^  a  facile 
^  Genesis  xxvii.  44,  45. 


i8o  ESAU 

unscrupulousness  about  other  people's  rights,  even 
when  these  other  people  were  her  husband  and  her 
son — in  short,  a  want  of  the  sense  of  God  and  His 
government  of  life.  But  although  it  was  his  own 
rights  of  which  Esau  was  forgetful,  the  unscrupu- 
lousness which  he  showed  was  the  same :  the  same 
forgetfulness  of  God  and  His  restraint ;  the  same 
disregard  of  consequences.  And  they  ruined  him. 
A  vice  will  vary  as  it  wanders  from  one  generation 
into  another,  and  will  often  take  a  more  fatal  form. 
We  may  never  give  our  children  the  example  of 
passionate  indulgence,  we  may  never  be  guilty  of 
deeds  so  offensive  as  Rebekah's — prudence  or 
timidity  may  keep  us  from  these — but  if  we  are 
hasty,  if  we  are  wanting  in  self-control  in  little 
temptations;  or  if,  while  ostensibly  religious, 
we  be  insincere;  or  have  no  sense  of  the  awful- 
ness  of  sin  and  of  its  certain  effects;  or  if 
we  tamper  with  the  truth  or  compromise  our 
consciences,  while  outwardly  respectable  and  regular 
in  life — we  are  infecting  our  children  with  just  that 
evil  which  in  them  may  break  out  to  violent  and 
ruinous  extremes.  It  is  not  drunken  or  licentious 
parents  who  are  most  dangerous  to  the  generation 
that  follows ;  for  by  their  excesses  they  very  often 


ESAU  i8i 

create  a  reaction  in  their  children.  It  is  careless 
parents,  shifty  and  insincere  parents,  parents  with 
no  impressive  sense  of  the  reality  of  God  and  His 
government,  or  of  the  natural  persistence  and 
irremediableness  of  sin. 

Our  text  calls  Esau  a  profane  person.  The 
Greek  word  means  literally  that  which  may  he 
trodden ;  which  is  unfenced  and  open  to  the  feet  of 
all.  It  was  applied  to  ground  outside  sacred 
enclosures  and  temples :  ground  that  was  common 
and  public.  Profane — that  which  is  in  front  of 
the  fane  or  temple — is,  therefore,  its  adequate 
translation. 

Such  a  home  Rebekah  appears  to  have  made  for 
her  sons,  a  home  not  walled  by  truth  or  the  fear 
of  God.  But  deceit  was  permitted  in  its  sacred 
relations ;  lies  found  their  way  across  its  holy  of 
holies,  the  mother's  lips.  Profane  home, 
indeed,  through  which  the  worst  things  were 
allowed  to  rush,  and  low  views  of  character 
prevailed.  Let  us  remember,  it  needs  not 
actual  fraud  or  lies  to  make  a  home  pro- 
fiine.  Vulgar  views  of  life,  forgetfulness  of 
God ;  purely  material  ambitions  for  the  children, 
or  unkind  gossip,  or  querulousness  and  discontent, 


1 8a  ESAU 

or  religious  "  gush "  and  cant — these  make 
profane  homes.  A  child's  character  has  as  little 
chance  in  them  as  Esau's  had  beneath  Rebekah's 
tent. 

Esau's  was  an  open  heart,  naturally  open  and 
unreserved.  You  know  the  kind  of  man.  He 
has  fifty  doors  to  the  outer  world  where  most  of  us 
have  but  two  or  three.  And  except  angels  be  sent 
to  guard  them,  the  peril  and  ill-omen  of  such  a  man 
are  very  great.  But  instead  of  angels,  Esau  had  by 
him  only  tempters — a  tempter  in  his  brother,  a 
tempter  in  his  mother.  Unguarded  by  loving 
presences,  unfilled  by  worthy  affections,  his  mind 
became  a  place  across  which  everything  was  allowed 
to  rush ;  across  which  the  commonest  passions,  like 
hunger,  ran  riot  una  wed  by  any  commanding 
principles.  That  is  what  our  text  means  by  a 
profane  person:  an  open  and  a  bare  character; 
unfenced  and  unhallowed ;  no  guardian  angels  at 
the  doors,  no  gracious  company  within,  no  fire  upon 
the  altar,  but  open  to  his  dogs,  his  passions,  his 
mother's  provocations,  and  his  brother's  wiles. 

Two  points  stand  out  from  the  consequent 
tragedy.     The  first  is  this. 

In  Romohy  in  the  picture  of  the  crisis  of  Tito's 


ESAU  183 

life — ^Tito,  you  remember,  the  genial  nature  which 
was  gradually  led  to  crime  by  daily  indulgence  in 
little  selfishnesses — George  Eliot  says :  "  He 
hardly  knew  how  the  words " — Tito  had  just 
denied  his  father,  and  the  denial  was  useless  as  well 
as  criminal — "  he  hardly  knew  how  the  words  had 
come  to  his  lips :  there  are  moments  when  our 
passions  speak  and  decide  for  us,  and  we  seem  to 
stand  by  and  wonder.  They  carry  in  them  an 
inspiration  of  crime,  that  in  one  instance  does  the 
work  of  long  premeditation."  So  it  happened 
with  Esau.  Esau  came  in  from  the  field  and  was 
faint y  and  Esau  said  to  Jacob y  Let  me  swalloWy  or 
gulp  down — it  is  a  greedy  word — some  of  this  redy 
this  red  stuffy  for  I  am  faint.  And  Jacob  said: 
Sell  me  first  of  all  thy  birthright.  And  Esau  said: 
Loy  I  am  going  to  diey  and  what  profit  shall  the 
birthright  do  to  me!  But  Jacob  said  :  First  of  ally 
swear  to  me!  One  sees  the  hard  look  with  which 
he  spoke.  So  he  sware  to  himy  and  he  sold  his 
birthright  to  Jacob.  And  Jacob  gave  Esau  bread 
and  lentil-pottage y  and  he  ate  and  dranky  and  went 
his  way — his  large,  careless  way!  Thus  Esau 
despised  his  birthright} 

*  Genesis  xxv.  29-34. 


i84  ESAU 

Look  at  the  two  habits  which  came  to  a  fata! 
crisis  in  that  speech :  the  habit  of  yielding  to 
appetite,  and  the  habit  of  indulging  in  exaggerated 
feelings  about  oneself.  1  am  at  the  point  to  die! 
We  cannot  believe  it  of  the  strong  man.  We  hear 
in  him  his  mother's  unscrupulous  voice.  These 
two  selfishnesses,  physical  and  mental,  fostered 
through  a  thousand  half-conscious  and  now 
forgotten  acts,  sprang  that  moment  to  fatal  empire, 
and  at  their  bidding  the  deluded  man  sold  his 
birthright.  Sold  the  future  and  his  honour,  just 
because  the  sight  of  a  mess  of  pottage  had  mounted 
to  his  unhallowed  brain,  and  with  the  sight  that 
sudden  intoxication  of  mingled  fear  and  vanity, 
which  selfish  and  unregulated  men  so  unconsciously 
but  so  surely  bring  upon  themselves  by  constantly 
tippling  exaggerated  and  false  feelings. 

Now,  do  not  let  us  pride  ourselves  that  we  are 
safe  from  selling  life  and  character  for  the  sake  of 
some  tyrant  passion.  In  the  long  run  it  is  the  little 
passions  which  betray  us.  There  are  more  people 
cheated  out  of  their  spiritual  birthrights  by  ordinary 
selfishness  than  by  great  lusts.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  habit  which  so  easily  grows  upon  us  of 
considering  our  own  comfort,  or  the  other,  almost 


ESAU  185 

as  easy,  of  insisting  upon  getting  our  own  way  in 
matters  little  as  well  as  great.  There  arc  none 
which  so  disturb  the  proportions  of  life  to  our  eyes. 
When  a  man  has  fallen  into  either  of  these  habits, 
the  smallest  things,  provided  he  has  set  his  mind 
on  them,  assume  gigantic  proportions ;  and  the  day 
arrives  when  one  of  such  trifles,  swollen  to 
importance  only  by  his  petty  insistences  upon  it, 
serves  to  turn  him,  as  the  mess  of  pottage  turned 
Esau,  from  some  great  right  or  opportunity  of  life. 
Such  a  man,  rather  than  yield  a  point,  will  destroy 
his  best  friendship,  will  relinquish  a  pure  affection, 
will  keep  a  noble  truth  out  of  his  mind ;  nay,  may 
deny  His  Saviour — as  Peter  denied  Him,  for  a 
physical  passion  so  ignoble  as  that  of  fear,  and  for 
the  sake  of  brazening  out  a  lie  in  the  face  of  a 
maid  servant.  Or  take  the  other  habit,  which  is 
evident  in  Esau,  of  thinking  in  an  extravagant  way 
about  oneself,  and  magnifying  one's  symptoms. 
How  prone  we  all  are  to  that,  and  how  easily  it  may 
cheat  us  of  the  great  chances  of  life  and  render  us 
unfit  for  life's  noblest  callings.  There  are  men 
and  women  who  exaggerate  their  ill-health,  their 
fatigue,  their  overwork,  or  the  wrongs  they  suffer 
from  others,  and  so  turn  the  very  discipline  by 


1 86  ESAU 

which  God  would  fit  them  for  high  duties  into 
ways  of  escape  from  the  same.  Is  it  not  lamentable 
that  Christians  who  suffer  the  kind  of  wrongs 
Christ  Himself  made  the  way  to  glory,  should  feel 
these  as  reasons  for  being  dispirited ;  and  waste 
what  strength  is  left  them  in  vain  recriminations,  or 
in  appeals  for  sympathy  to — generally — the  least 
worthy  of  their  friends ;  to  whom  to  appeal  to  is  as 
much  a  snare  and  temptation  as  Esau  found  his 
crafty  brother  to  be.  How  many  become  thus 
morally  bed-ridden!  The  wrecked  careers,  the 
forfeited  birthrights  of  this  country  are  not  all  to 
be  found  in  the  drunkards'  graves,  or  lurking  in  the 
shadows  of  the  streets  at  night.  They  may  be  seen 
in  comfortable  homes,  in  church  pews,  in  many  a 
respectable,  and  apparently  successful,  position  of 
affluence.  They  were  needed  to  take  the  lead  in 
Church  or  State.  They  were  needed  for  inspiration 
in  the  crowd.  But  a  base  love  of  comfort,  a 
wounded  vanity,  a  selfish  exaggeration  of  their 
importance  or  of  their  weakness,  a  cowardly 
yielding  to  the  strain  that  should  have  brought 
them  strength — turned  them  from  their  duty  and 
their  great  right. 

But  I  have  said  enough  to  remind  you  that 


ESAU  187 

Esau's  fatal  crime  may  be  repeated  by  any  of  us, 
who  are  not  born  hairy,  who  are  not  wild  hunters, 
but  plain,  tame,  church-going  men  and  women. 

The  second  point  in  the  progress  of  Esau's  ruin 
is  this.  His  passion  made  him  the  prey  of  the 
first  designing  man  he  came  across — who  happened 
to  be  his  own  brother.  Now,  on  this  I  should  like 
to  talk  frankly  to  the  young  men  before  me.  There 
is  not  a  pleasure  or  a  passion  which  tempts  one  of 
you,  but  there  are  men  and  women  waiting  along 
its  path  to  make  their  gains  out  of  it  and  you.  Do 
not  suffer  yourselves  to  be  deluded  by  either  of 
the  two  attractions  to  a  life  of  pleasure — by  the 
ambition  that  you  are  going  to  play  the  full-grown 
man  at  once,  or  by  the  fancy  that  you  will  enjoy  a 
cordiality  and  friendship  you  have  not  found  in 
more  sober  circles.  Whether  it  be  drinking  or 
gambling,  or  worse,  to  which  such  ambitions  tempt 
you,  remember  that  in  that  direction  those  are 
ready  who  will  not  make  a  man  but  a  poor 
fool  of  you ;  who  will  not  be  your  friends  longer 
than  you  can  prove  of  use  to  them.  Almost  every 
year  of  my  ministry  I  have  known  men  who  have 
fallen  thus — men,  in  some  instances,  who  have 
lived    to   turn   from    their   bedsides   their   most 


1 88  ESAU 

frequent  friends,  and  to  add  a  bitter  hatred  of  their 
fellow-sinners  to  the  remorse  with  which  they 
passed  to  the  presence  of  their  Judge. 

Finally,  let  us  get  back  to  the  word  profane; 
for  this  is  the  centre  of  the  whole  evil. 

Young  men  and  women  fence  your  characters. 
Make  yourselves  not  common.  Remember  how 
John  Milton  has  told  us  that  he  kept  himself  from 
the  evils  of  his  college  days :  "...  a  certain 
niceness  of  nature,  an  honest  haughtiness  and  self- 
esteem  either  of  what  I  was,  or  what  I  might  be 
(which  let  envy  call  pride),  and  lastly,  that  modesty, 
whereof  ...  I  may  be  excused  to  make  some 
beseeming  profession ;  all  these  uniting  the  supply 
of  their  natural  aid  together  kept  me  still  above 
those  low  descents  of  mind."  I  intreat  you  to  be 
on  your  guard  against  the  little  vices.  Take  the 
question  of  truth.  It  seems  to  many  an  innocent 
thing  to  tell  the  lighter  kinds  of  lies.  That  is  a 
fatal  mistake.  The  character  which  opens  to  such 
visitors  will  lie  open  to  everything.  Admit  them, 
and  you  are  certain  some  day  to  be  betrayed  into 
larger  and  more  fatal  issues.  Nor  ever  tamper 
with  the  strenuous  resistance  you  should  offer  to 
unhealthy  thoughts.    But  remember  that  emptiness 


ESAU  189 

is  never  sacredness.  An  empty  mind  is  the  unsafest 
and  unholiest  thing  in  the  world.  Remember  how 
near  the  evil  spirit  and  his  seven  companions  were 
to  the  swept  and  garnished  house.  Jealously 
guard  your  hearts,  indeed,  from  the  evil  world : 
still  more  jealously  fill  them  from  the  world  of 
holiness  and  truth.  How  necessary  it  is,  my 
brothers,  in  the  midst  of  this  earthly  life  which 
"  sipes  "  and  soaks  in  upon  these  porous  hearts  of 
ours,  to  lay  hold  on  eternal  life ;  to  pull  it  towards 
ourselves ;  to  make  our  spiritual  life  not,  as  we 
often  do,  our  indulgence  and  luxury,  but  our 
severest  athletic  and,  at  times  even,  our  agony.  Oh 
to  live  among  noble  things ;  to  practise  them,  to  take 
them  to  one's  heart,  to  get  the  soul  devoted  to 
them;  and  to  keep  the  body  so  pure  that  their 
appeals  shall  thrill  it  with  the  same  fire  with  which 
it  throbs  too  often  to  the  sense  of  the  unworthy 
and  the  base. 

I  have  spoken  of  guardian  angels,  loving 
presences,  which  do  help  a  man,  next  to  his  own 
conscience  and  agony,  to  keep  his  heart  clean. 
Loving  presences,  holy  parents,  loyal  friends  to 
whom  friendship  is  "  the  common  aspiration,"  pure 
and  honourable  loves — these  do  keep  a  man  from 


I90  ESAU 

giving  himself  away.  But,  my  brothers,  God  has 
sent  us  One  more  powerful  than  even  these. 
He  has  given  us  a  Saviour :  nothing  less  is  implied 
in  the  Name  of  Jesus :  a  Saviour  and  how  sufficient 
for  the  whole  world !  Above  all,  then,  lay  hold  of 
Christ.  He  is  near  you — nearer  your  youth  than 
ever,  if  you  refuse  Him  now,  He  can  appear  to 
your  later  years.  Let  Him  dwell  in  your  hearts  by 
faith,  and  that  will  keep  their  sanctuaries  pure  and 
their  altars  heaped  with  fire.  Have  you  ever 
understood  what  He  desires  of  you  ?  It  is  not  the 
taking  of  an  arbitrary  bond.  It  is  not  trust  in  a 
bare  transaction.  It  is  not  assent  to  a  creed.  It  is 
the  giving  of  the  heart  and  will  to  a  living  love  and 
victorious  example  which  have  never  failed  any 
who  have  put  their  trust  in  Him. 

It  was  something  similar  which  made  the 
difference  between  Esau  and  Jacob.  When  we 
meet  them  Jacob  is  as  low  and  weak  a  character  as 
we  can  conceive.  But  he  laid  hold  on  God,  and 
would  not  let  the  blessing  go ;  till  at  last  we  find 
him  grown  to  the  spiritual  stature  in  which  he 
passes  from  our  sight. 

So  it  may  be  with  any  here.  Who  feels  most 
his    weakness .f^      Who    most    distrusts    himself? 


ESAU  191 

Who  faces  the  future  with  the  hopelessness  born 
of  the  knowledge  that  temptations  are  waiting  him 
there  which  he  has  never  yet  conquered,  but  they 
have  put  him  to  shame  again  and  again?  My 
brother,  God's  Love  has  come  within  your  reach. 
In  Christ  lay  hold  of  it.  Set  your  will  to  His  will, 
and  you  will  find  that  to  the  first  feeblest  efforts  you 
make,  His  Love  draws  near  with  a  great  trust 
in  you,  and  His  power  is  added  with  the 
assurance  of  victory. 


XI 

GIDEON.    I 

And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  and  sat  under  the  terebinth 
which  was  in  Ophrah,  that  pertained  unto  Joash  the 
Abiezrite :  and  his  son  Gideon  was  beating  out  wheat  in 
the  wine  press  to  hide  it  from  the  Midianites.  And  the 
angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  unto  him  and  said  unto  him. 
The  Lord  it  with  thee,  thou  mighty  man  of  valour !  And 
Gideon  said  unto  him,  Oh  my  lord,  if  the  Lord  be  with 
ns,  why  then  ii  all  this  befallen  us  ?  and  where  be  all  His 
wondrous  works,  which  our  Others  told  us  of,  saying,  Did 
not  the  Lord  bring  us  up  from  Egypt  i  but  now  the  Lord 
hath  cast  us  off  and  delivered  us  into  the  hand  of  Midian. 
And  the  Lord  looked  upon  him  and  said.  Go  in  this  thy 
might,  and  save  Israel  from  the  hand  of  Midian :  have  not 
I  sent  thee  I  And  he  said  unto  Him,  Oh  Lord,  where- 
with shall  I  save  Israel?  behold  my  family  is  the  poorest 
in  Manasseh,  and  I  am  the  least  in  my  father's  house. 
And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Surely  I  will  be  with  thee, 
and  thou  shalt  smite  the  Midianites  as  one  man. — 
Judges  vi.  11-16. 

\  WRITER  of  our  time  has  said  of  the  story 
-^^  of  Gideon  that  in  force  and  beauty  it  is 
equal  to  any  episode  in  the  epic  poems  of  Greece. 


GIDEON.     1  193 

Whatever  homage  we  may  pay  to  it  as  literature, 
we  cannot  deny  its  moral  reality.  There  are  in  it 
— it  would  be  useless  to  ignore — certain  features 
which  neither  the  reason  nor  the  conscience  of 
many  of  us  will  readily  accept.  But  there  is  present 
a  character — s.  character  with  way  upon  him. 
Amid  those  far  off  wonders,  we  see  a  real  man 
marching  at  the  full  height  of  his  manhood : 
coming  forth  from  God  and  effecting  the  work 
which  was  needed  in  his  own  day,  in  the  spirit 
which  is  indispensable  to  God's  service  at  all  times. 
Gideon  himself  is  real  enough  and  strong  enough 
to  carry  us  past  the  difficulties  of  his  story.  May 
God  quicken  our  sluggish  lives  to  the  pace,  and 
lift  them  to  the  pitch,  of  his  I 

I 

It  was  a  period  in  which  hope  had  died  out  of 
Gideon's  people.  They  had  been  overrun  by  one 
of  those  tribes,  whom  God  has  bred  in  the  deserts, 
for  no  other  purpose,  it  would  appear,  than  the 
scourging  of  delinquent  civilisations.  There  have 
been  barbarians  from  whom  it  was  good  for  a  land 
to  suffer  invasion ;  they  have  proved  more  profit- 
able nurses  of  its  powers  than  the  civilised  people 


194  GIDEON.     1 

whom  they  dispossessed.  But  such  has  not  been 
the  case  with  most  of  the  loose  hordes  whom 
Arabia  has  disgorged  on  the  fertile  lands  to  the 
west  and  north  of  her,  and  who  have  been  without 
the  instincts  to  settle  and  cultivate.  Such  Ish- 
maelites  have  not  brought  anything  but  ruin. 
They  have  spoiled  the  fields,  stripped  the  woods, 
and  by  their  recurring  raids  rendered  civic  life  an 
impossibility. 

For  seven  successive  years  Israel  had  suffered 
from  such  an  invasion.  It  had  crossed  the  Jordan, 
flowed  up  Esdraelon,  and  each  year  had  risen  higher 
upon  the  hill-country  to  the  south.  In  the  interior 
of  Manasseh  and  Ephraim,  the  peasants  were  find- 
ing it  ever  more  difficult  to  secure  their  harvests. 
The  villages  were  being  abandoned ;  and  the 
population  betaking  themselves  to  caves  and  dens, 
where  their  families  and  their  grain  might  be 
hidden  from  the  raiding  parties  of  the  Arabs.  This 
would  have  been  a  blow  to  any  community ;  it 
was  a  terrible  shock  for  Israel.  They  knew  that 
they  had  been  brought  to  the  land  by  the  hand  of 
God  Himself,  revealed  in  many  wonderful  deeds 
on  earth  and  sea.  For  a  number  of  years  they  had 
been  settled  on  the  land,  and  had  felt  the  instincts 


GIDEON.     I  195 

of  a  progressive  civilisation.  Israel  had  risen 
above  the  tribes,  by  which  they  were  surrounded ; 
and  they  knew  their  distinction.  They,  too,  like 
their  neighbours,  had  been  only  a  loose  confederacy 
of  small  clans.  But  faith  in  the  same  God  had 
bound  those  clans  together,  and  had  given  them 
the  consciousness  of  a  nation.  Their  religion, 
especially  under  the  leadership  of  Deborah,  had 
brought  forth  patriotism,  and  the  duties  of  dis- 
cipline and  self-sacrifice.  By  the  character  of  their 
God,  righteousness  was  enforced,  grace  and 
patience  were  exemplified,  and  it  would  even 
appear  that  (however  dimly,  for  centuries  were 
needed  to  bring  them  to  face  it)  some  instinct  of  a 
service  beyond,  themselves  already  stirred  within 
them.  But  now  from  such  a  position  they  were  cast 
down  by  the  stupidest  and  unthriftiest  of  peoples, 
who  could  teach  them  nothing,  nor  train  them  to 
any  discipline,  but  were  fit  only  to  beat  them  back 
into  the  condition  of  cave-dwellers,  hunted  and 
craven,  incapable  of  art,  thought  or  hope.  A 
nation  driven  to  earth,  men  reduced  to  reptiles — 
can  we  conceive  of  a  more  desperate  state  of  affairs  ? 
Yet  God  had  His  servant  in  preparation,  who 
was  to  work  the  deliverance. 


196  GIDEON.     I 

n 

It  is  remarkable  that  God  chose  a  man,  who  not 
only  had  felt  the  strain  of  these  terrible  times,  but 
whom  the  strain  had  wearied  and  torn  with  many 
doubts.  For  the  very  highest  work  God  often 
chooses  men  who  have  doubted.  Very  few  even 
are  the  great  souls  who,  like  Isaiah  or  Paul,  are 
ready  to  answer  God's  call,  upon  the  first  answer 
to  their  doubts.  Many  of  them,  it  is  true,  have 
only  been  doubters  about  themselves.  Moses  and 
Jeremiah  held  back  from  a  sense  of  personal  unfit- 
ness :  Thy  servant  is  no  speaker ;  1  am  a  child. 
Gideon,  too,  had  a  feeling  of  his  unworthiness  :  Oh 
my  lord,  wherewith  shall  I  save  Israel.  Behold  my 
family  is  the  poorest  in  Manassehy  and  I  am  the 
least  in  my  father^ s  house.  That,  however,  was 
only  his  second  doubt :  there  was  a  previous  and  a 
darker  temper  of  mind.  Gideon  was  uncertain, 
not  of  himself  only,  but  of  his  people,  and  of  the 
whole  purpose  of  God  that  had  been  declared  to 
them.  Oh  my  lord,  if  the  Lord  he  with  us, 
why  then  has  all  this  befallen  us,  and  where  be  all 
the  miracles  which  our  fathers  told  us  of,  saying. 
Did  not  the  Lord  bring  us  up  from  Egypt  f  but 


GIDEON.     I  197 

now  the  Lord  hath  cast  us  offy  and  delivered  us 
into  the  hand  of  Midian.  This  is  a  very  troubled 
spirit.  We  feel  something  here  which  cuts  all  the 
sinews  of  hope. 

But  the  strong  lesson,  which  shines  so  clearly 
from  the  story,  is  that  there  is  no  doubt  too  dark 
to  be  hopeless ;  none  too  deep  for  God  to  lift  a 
man  out  of  and  make  him  a  man  of  faith  and 
energy.  Wc  need  that  lesson — we  of  to-day. 
The  kind  of  doubt  which  is  meeting  many  of  our 
best  young  men  upon  their  entry  to  manhood,  is 
this  kind.  Gideon's  words  have  t  strong  modern 
ring  about  them.  It  is  just  this  cry,  that  the  age 
of  miracles  is  over;  this  despair,  that  we  cannot 
continue  to  work  with  the  brave  beliefs  and  hopes 
of  our  fathers ;  this  failure  of  faith  in  the  presence 
and  the  leading  of  God  Himself,  which  beset  us. 
O,  my  brothers,  if  in  any  degree  such  feelings  have 
attacked  you,  remember  that  they  are  not  new,  and 
they  are  not  incurable.  Men  have  been  discip- 
lined in  this  kind  of  doubt  before ;  and  have  been 
brought  out  of  it  to  a  decisiveness  and  a  power  of 
action  which  have  lifted  nations  behind  them. 
Some  doubt  there  must  be  for  every  man  to  suffer, 
who  would  do  God's  work  in  the  world.     For 


198  GIDEON.     I 

doubt,  if  it  be  honest,  means  generally  the  mind 
to  think  and  the  heart  to  sympathise  ;  and  without 
thought  and  without  sympathy  I  suppose  not  God 
Himself  could  make  much  of  any  man.  But 
remember  that  mere  academic  doubts,  doubts  which 
rise  from  theorising,  are  no  better  than  faiths  which 
rise  from  the  same  source.  Neither  the  intellectual 
restlessness  of  a  mind  with  no  practical  problems 
to  occupy  it ;  nor  the  licentious  freedom  of  a  mind, 
which  is  loosened  from  conscience  and  the 
great  natural  pieties,  is  of  any  profit  what- 
ever. But  doubt  which  rises  from  the  pressure 
of  life,  from  the  awful  mass  of  labour  lying 
before  society,  from  the  apparent  indifference 
and  silence  of  the  highest  powers  of  the 
Universe  to  the  wrong  and  the  suffering  that 
seem  to  persist  and  to  grow ;  though  it  is  the 
most  desperate  doubt  into  which  a  man  may  enter, 
is  yet  the  kind  that  God  has  used,  and  will  use,  as 
the  night  from  which  His  day  shall  spring,  the 
baptism  and  the  discipline  of  strong  and  confident 
careers  of  service. 

Ill 

Let  us  now  see  how  Gideon's  doubts  are  over- 
come.    It  is  apparent  that  they  are  overcome,  as 


GIDEON.     I  199 

doubt  is  always  overcome,  by  the  constraint  of  a 
Personal  Influence.  We  have  in  this  Book  the 
stories  of  some  deep  doubters ;  men  who,  when  we 
meet  them,  are  sitting  encumbered  by  the  intricate 
questions  of  their  experience,  and  yet  who  before 
they  pass  from  our  sight  have  risen  to  lives  of 
freedom  and  action.  Now  in  every  case  the  change 
has  come,  not  because  they  have  had  their  doubts 
answered,  for  the  Bible  contains  singularly  little 
argument  in  response  to  the  questions  which  it 
starts ;  but  because  they  have  owned  the  obligation 
and  felt  the  inspiration  of  Almighty  God  in  His 
Personal  Presence  and  Grace.  When  Moses  and 
Jeremiah  express  to  Him  their  doubts  of  their  fit- 
ness for  the  work  to  which  He  has  called  them,  God 
does  not  tell  them  that  they  are  mistaken,  or  argue 
with  them  on  the  point.  He  simply  lays  His 
hand  upon  them ;  puts,  that  is,  upon  their  hearts 
and  consciences  the  constraint  of  His  will ;  and  lo ! 
they  are  up  and  ready  for  the  work.  Or  when  Job 
utters  to  God  the  questions  which  have  rendered 
his  mind  as  raw  and  torn  as  ever  his  poor  body  is, 
God  answers  few  or  none  of  these,  but  reveals 
Himself  to  the  Patriarch  in  His  Power,  and  at  His 
Presence  every  doubt  is  stilled.     In  the  beautiful 


200  GIDEON.     I 

poetry  in  which  the  story  of  Gideon  is  told  to  us, 
we  see  the  same  process  related  in  a  more  naive  and 
child-like  form.  He  is  met  by  One  whom  at  first 
he  addresses  as  if  He  were  a  fellow  man.  He  tells 
his  doubts  about  himself,  about  the  people,  about 
God.  And  the  Other  Person  does  not  argue  or 
seek  to  answer  him.  But  instead  there  grows  upon 
Gideon  the  sense  that  he  is  dealing  with  God,  in 
the  presence  of  whose  command  questions  grow 
dumb,  and  beneath  whose  hand  the  sense  of  weak- 
ness and  unfitness  vanish  away. 

It  is  in  no  different  fashion  that  men  arc  released 
to-day  from  the  hesitation  and  the  fear  which  doubt 
produces.  Remember  that  it  is  not  by  getting  an 
answer  to  the  hundred  questions  which  trouble  us 
that  we  are  rendered  fit  to  take  a  clear  and  decided 
course  through  life.  Many  of  those  questions  will 
remain  unanswered  to  the  end.  Many  you  will 
come  to  feel  are  not  worth  answering  at  all ;  and 
to  some  of  even  the  most  serious  the  issues  of 
character  and  practical  life  will  turn  out  to  be 
indifferent.  It  is  the  Personal  that  fits  us  for  a 
free  and  a  great  life.  It  is  not  an  answer  we  need ; 
it  is  a  call.  It  is  not  to  have  mastered  this 
or    that    answer    to    our    questions;    it    is    to 


GIDEON.     I  20I 

render  obedience  to  a  power  which  will  bring  us 
through  the  submission  of  our  wills  to  light  and 
to  power. 

Do  not,  therefore,  let  your  youth  be  wholly 
spent  in  the  enquiry:  what  can  I  get  answered? 
This  will  appear  in  time.  But  be  ready  to  put  the 
great  questions  :  What  do  I  owe  to  God  ?  What 
need  has  He  for  me  in  the  world?  What  need 
have  I  of  Him  in  my  own  weak  and  soiled  natxire  ? 
The  answers  to  our  doubts  which  in  youth  we  are 
so  confident  of  obtaining,  are  not  always  given  to 
us.  As  I  said,  some  are  never  reached,  and  some 
we  do  not  care  about  as  the  years  go  on.  But 
always  very  near  to  us  is  the  Presence  of  our  God 
in  Jesus  Christ ;  and  as  we  grow  in  experience 
not  less  necessary  does  the  constraint  of  His  will 
feel  to  our  hearts,  but  ever  more  real  and 
indispensable.  May  God  help  you  to  feel  that 
life  is  just  this  great  moral  question :  What  is  the 
will  of  God  for  me?  The  more  keenly  you  feel 
it,  the  nearer  is  His  answer;  and  the  fuller  the 
grace  He  will  give  you  to  realise  that  answer  for 
yourself  and  for  others. 


202  GIDEON.     I 

IV 

Again,  there  is  something  for  us  to  learn  in  the 
place  where  the  vision  of  God  appeared  to 
Gideon. 

In  the  central  valleys  of  Manasseh,  it  appears  to 
have  been  still  possible  for  the  Hebrew  farmers  to 
cultivate  a  little  grain  and  to  reap  it.  But  it  was 
impossible  to  thresh  this  on  any  of  the  proper 
threshing  floors.  These  lie  high,  in  order  to  catch 
the  wind,  and  are  visible  from  great  distances. 
Gideon  could  not  thresh  his  corn  on  one  of  them 
without  attracting  the  notice  of  the  Arab 
raiders.  So  he  took  his  little  harvest  to  the  wine- 
press, and  there,  in  the  narrow  space,  not  big 
enough  to  turn  a  threshing-sledge  in,  he  beat  out 
his  grain  painfully  and  slowly. 

It  is  the  picture  of  a  man,  manfully  doing  the 
one  duty  left  to  him,  under  extreme  disadvantage, 
and  while  his  heart  is  gnawed  by  doubt.  Yet 
it  was  here,  in  this  close  atmosphere  amid  the  dust, 
that  the  cramped  man  was  found  of  God.  Here, 
as  he  threshed  his  straw  and  his  doubts  together, 
God  appeared  to  him;  and  the  future  which  had 
been    barred    opened    out    to    victory:     opened 


GIDEON.     I  203 

out  through  that  narrow  doorway  in  which  the 
sunbeams  and  the  dust  were  striving  for 
mastery. 

Here  is  a  great  lesson  for  us,  that  God  appears 
to  a  man,  who  makes  the  most  of  what  he  has. 
The  great  cry:  The  Lord  is  with  thee,  thou 
mighty  man  of  valour^  falls  on  the  ears  not  of  one 
who  has  betaken  himself  on  some  adventure  against 
his  people's  foes,  but  on  this  straitened  and  doubt- 
ing farmer,  doggedly  doing  the  only  work  possible 
to  him  in  the  circumstances.  That^  say  the  words 
in  which  he  is  addressed,  that  is  heroism. 

There  are  few  minds  in  which  the  religious 
issues  are  not  entangled  with  personal  interests. 
Discontent  with  one's  own  opportunities  and 
advantages  is  ever  prone  to  mix  with  and  embitter 
the  nobler  questions  of  God's  power  and  willing- 
ness to  help  the  world.  In  our  doubts  about  Him 
and  His  ways  we  have  often,  as  the  author  of  the 
Seventy-Third  Psalm  shows  us,  to  search  for  and 
to  cancel  those  selfish  considerations  which  will 
intrude  into  what  seems  the  most  disinterested 
doubt.  My  heart  was  in  a  ferment^  and  I  was 
pricked  in  my  reins.  So  brutish  was  I  and 
ignorant y  1  was  as  a  beast  before  thee.     We  must 


204  GIDEON.     I 

obstinately  eliminate  all  questions  of  personal 
ambition,  of  wrong  done  to  ourselves,  of  discon- 
tent with  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed, 
before  our  doubt  can  be  p\ire  enough  for 
God's  Spirit  to  act  upon.  We  must  take  what 
we  have,  work  from  where  we  find  ourselves,  do 
the  duty  that  lies  before  us,  if  we  would  gain  the 
light.  Cynicism,  wounded  pride,  peevishness,  are 
not  the  tempers  God  comes  to  meet  and  to  lift. 
The  men  He  promotes  are  those  who  do  their  duty 
doggedly  in  such  space  and  with  such  light  as  they 
have.  He  meets  us,  not  on  some  wide  ground  of 
our  own  fancy,  but  where  He  has  placed  us,  in  the 
dust  and  din  of  our  common  life.  This  is  the  way 
His  heroes  are  made.  When  you  are  apt  to  com- 
plain— ^as  who  is  not  sometimes.? — that  you  have 
no  opportunity  for  the  hopes  with  which  your 
heart  is  bursting ;  that  your  Lord  is  an  austere  man ; 
that  the  facts  of  life  frustrate  faith ;  that  the 
amount  of  mystery  He  leaves  to  us  renders  con- 
fident action  and  long  hope  impossible :  remember 
to  make  the  most  of  what  you  have,  and  to  do  the 
work  that  lies  to  your  hand.  Remember  David 
Livingstone,  who  learned  the  rudiments  of  what 
gave  him  a  University  education  and  launched 


GIDEON.     I  205 

him  on  his  great  career,  in  the  noise  of  a  spinning 
factory.  Remember  Gideon,  whom  God  met  and 
called  a  hero,  because  while  suffering  both  from 
doubt  and  adversity,  he  still  did  what  he  could  do 
with  a  brave  and  dogged  heart 


XII 

GIDEON.    II 

And  it  came  to  pass  the  same  night  that  the  Lord  said  unto 
him,  Arise,  get  thee  down  against  the  camp :  for  I  have 
delivered  it  into  thine  hand.  But,  if  thou  fear  to  go 
dowrn,  go  thou  with  Purah  thy  servant  down  to  the  camp  ; 
and  thou  shalt  hear  what  they  say ;  and  afterwards  shall 
thine  hands  be  strengthened  to  go  down  against  the  camp. 
Then  went  he  down  with  Purah  his  servant  unto  the 
outermost  part  of  the  armed  men  that  were  in  the  camp. — 
Judges  vii.  9-1 1. 

T  T  rHEN  Gideon's  doubts  had  been  conquered 
^  ^  (as  we  saw  in  a  previous  sermon),  and  his 
way  was  open  to  the  great  battlefield  of  his  life,  we 
are  not  to  suppose  that  he  immediately  swept  there. 
It  was  harvest  time  when  God  found  him,  and 
he  may  have  required  the  months  before  the  next 
Midianite  invasion  in  order  to  summon  the  tribes 
of  Israel  to  war.  Then,  when  the  Arab  hordes 
again  crossed  the  Jordan  for  the  green  grass  and 
ripe  corn  of  western  Palestine,  Gideon  marched 


GIDEON.     II  207 

upon  their  highway  up  the  valley  of  Jczrccl,  with 
— the  story  tells  us — many  thousand  men  behind 
him. 


These,  however,  were  not  an  army,  but  a  mob. 
The  want  of  proper  arms,  such  as  other  parts  of  the 
Book  of  Judges  lament  in  the  Israel  of  that 
period,^  was  not  the  real  difficulty.  This  lay  in 
the  temper  rather  than  in  the  equipment  of  the 
host.  The  people  had  been  summoned  in  the 
name  of  their  religion,  and  the  enthusiasm  which 
had  brought  them  together  now  needed  to  be  tested 
in  face  of  the  foe.  Nor  was  a  huge  mass  of  fighters 
required  for  the  sensible  tactics,  often  employed 
in  Oriental  warfare,  which  Gideon  had  been  moved 
to  select :  the  rush  of  a  small  band  of  resolute  men 
upon  the  self-confident  enemy  while  they  were 
asleep,  so  as  to  throw  them  into  panic.  Therefore, 
first,  it  was  necessary  to  get  rid  of  all  those  whose 
religious  enthusiasm  could  not  stand  the  stern 
realities  of  the  field ;  whose  vision  of  things  unseen 
melted  before  the  visible  enemy  upon  the  plain 
below  them.  Whosoever  is  fearful  and  tremhlingy 
1  Judges  iii.  31 ;  ▼.  8  ;  cf.  i  Sam.  xiii.  19-22. 


2o8  GIDEON.     II 

let  him  return  and  depart.  And  the  great  majority 
returned.  Others  fell  upon  the  rocky  places^ 
where  they  had  not  much  earth;  and  straightway 
they  sprang  up^  because  they  had  no  deepness  of 
earth;  and  when  the  sun  was  risen  they  were 
scorched;  and  because  they  had  no  root  they 
withered  away} 

A  second  winnowing  of  the  levies  which 
remained  is  more  obscure  in  its  purpose.  But, 
unless  it  was  purely  arbitrary,  which  is  not 
probable,  this  appears  to  be  its  proper  explanation. 
Between  the  edge  of  the  hills,  where  the  Hebrew 
army  had  arrived,  and  the  Midianite  host,  spread 
on  the  plain  below,  there  lay  a  spring,  a  pool,  and 
some  watercourses  thick  with  reeds.  Gideon  was 
led  to  take  his  thirsty  men  down  to  the  pool  on  the 
level  of  the  plain,  and  test  in  what  manner  they 
would  take  their  needed  refreshment  in  face  of  the 
enemy.  Some  lapped  the  water,  that  is  took  it  as 
quickly  and  with  as  little  interruption  of  their 
general  bearing  as  dogs  make  in  drinking ;  but  the 
rest  bowed  down  on  their  knees  to  drink.  Unless 
the  test  was  purely  arbitrary,  which  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  on  any  critical  theory  of  the  text,  the 
^ Matthew  xiii,  5, '6. 


GIDEON.     II  209 

difference  between  the  two  classes  was  this:  that 
some,  mindful  of  the  enemy  so  near  and  of  their 
possible  outposts  ambushed  in  the  reeds,  drank 
hastily  in  a  position  nearest  the  erect,  and  one 
which  did  not  break  their  vigilance  ;  while  the  rest 
knelt  down,  forgetful  of  the  foe,  and  drank  in  an 
attitude  more  comfortable,  but  more  easy  to  be  sur- 
prised. This  certainly  would  be  a  kind  of  test  to 
appeal  to  the  Oriental  mind.^ 

If  such  be  the  right  explanation,  we  have  in  it 
the  symbol  of  a  great  distinction  among  those  who, 
in  whatever  age,  have  obeyed  the  summons  of  God 
to  work  or  to  warfare  for  His  high  ends.  What 
attitude  do  they  take  to  the  foe  ?  What  thoughts 
of  the  foe  determine  that  attitude  ?  In  face  of  the 
evils  they  are  called  to  fight,  what  use  do  they 
make  of  the  necessary  refreshments  that  lie  before 
them?  Do  they  use  food,  rest,  wealth,  joy,  as 
men  who  take  these  only  the  better  to  fit  them  for 
their  work,  and  without  relaxing  their  discipline 
and  vigilance  ?  Or,  in  their  greed  for  comfort,  do 
they  forget  the  ends  for  which  they  have  been 
called,  and  put  themselves  into  attitudes  in  which 
they  may  be  surprised  and  beaten  ?  These  are  a 
*  The  story  requires  a  good  deal  of  textual  criticism. 


2IO  GIDEON.     II 

series  of  questions,  which,  whether  the  explanation 
of  the  story  just  given  be  correct  or  not,  it  is 
necessary  for  each  of  us  in  Christ's  Kingdom  to  put 
to  himself,  honestly  and  frequently.  He  shall 
drink  of  the  brook  in  the  way:  and  so  lift  up  his 
head}  Yes ;  but  the  Work,  the  War,  is  that  to 
which  God  has  called  us ;  and  we  have  to  see  that 
the  blessings,  which  He  has  strewn  for  us  in  the 
way,  are  used  by  us  with  due  respect  to  that  Work, 
and  not  as  indulgences,  which  relax  our  vigilance 
or  sap  our  strength  in  face  of  it. 

In  parallel  to  Gideon's  selection  of  his  force,  we 
may  look  for  a  little  at  the  story  of  the  enlistment 
of  Cromwell's  Ironsides  upon  the  eve  of  the  Civil 
War.  Cromwell  did  as  Gideon  did.  His  large 
levies  he  winnowed  and  sifted  again  and  again, 
turning  away  numbers  of  volunteers,  and  choosing 
those  whom  he  kept  not  because  of  their  strength 
or  experience  in  fighting,  still  less  for  their  rank 
or  social  position,  but  "  because  they  had  the  fear 
of  God."  He  calls  them  "  our  handful"  ;  and  in 
answer  to  those  who  blamed  him  for  his  unusual 
rigour  in  recruiting,  he  replied  :  "  I  had  rather  have 
a  plain  russet-coated  captain,  that  knows  what  he 
^  Psalm  ex.  7. 


GIDEON.     II  211 

fights  for,  and  loves  what  he  knows,  than  what  you 
call  a  *  Gentleman,'  and  is  nothing  else."  "  Who 
knows  what  he  fights  for  and  loves  what  he  knows  " 
— what  a  fine  definition  it  is  of  the  true  soldier! 
In  that  great  war  the  issues  were  not  what  every 
man  might  understand,  or  lightly  put  his  heart  to. 
There  was  no  national  flag,  no  hereditary  enemy, 
no  obvious  patriotism.  The  issues  were  spiritual 
and  complex ;  needing  discernment  and  a  keen 
conscience.  It  is  not  difi^erent  with  ourselves. 
There  is  so  much  to  cross  the  moral  issues  before 
us,  and  to  distract  our  minds;  so  much  that  is 
attractive  and  strong  to  beget  enthusiasm,  though 
utterly  beside  the  great  Question ;  and  so  much 
more  that  is  in  its  degree  innocent,  relevant  and 
even  necessary,  yet  so  liable  to  absorb  our  fickle 
hearts,  that  for  its  sake  we  may  forget  the  main 
ends  for  which  we  arc  here.  God  make  us  who 
are  of  His  Church  men  who  "  know  what  they 
fight  for  and  love  what  they  know,"  past  the  love 
of  food  and  drink,  of  comfort  and  of  wealth ! 

II 

But  now  Gideon's  prolonged  preparation  is  over, 
and  his  three  hundred  are  chosen.      Wc  might 


212  GIDEON.     II 

expect  that  such  careful  measures  having  been 
taken  to  eliminate  human  pride  from  this  great 
enterprise,  there  would  immediately  ensue  some 
miracle  of  victory.  Instead,  we  are  called  to 
follow  a  slow  and  intricate  story  of  ordinary 
Eastern  warfare,  in  which  the  one  thing  super- 
natural is  the  faith  in  God's  guidance  that  fills 
His  soldiers,  and  the  issue  works  out  through 
military  adventure  and  strategy  on  the  one 
side,  and  through  natural  alarm  and  panic  on 
the  other. 

This  new  departure  is  very  quietly  related  by 
the  narrative.  The  same  night  on  which  the  three 
hundred  had  been  chosen,  the  Lord  said  to 
Gideon :  ArisCy  get  thee  down  against  the  camp 
of  the  Midianites,  for  I  have  delivered  it  into 
thine  hand.  It  was  the  supreme  moment :  a  rush, 
with  the  hand  of  God  upon  him,  and  victory  had 
been  Gideon's  in  half  an  hour.  But,  whether 
Gideon  faltered  at  the  call,  or  God  knew  that  the 
man  needed  some  further  inspiration  than  faith.  He 
added:  But  if  thou  fear  to  go  down^  that  is  with 
the  whole  band  upon  the  full  adventure,  ^o,  first, 
thyself  with  Purah  thy  servant^  and  reconnoitre ; 
€nd  thou  shalt  hear  what  they  say^  and  then  thy 


GIDEON.     II  213 

hands  shall  be  strengthened  to  go  down  with  the 
three  hundred  against  the  camp. 

So,  instead  of  the  whole  regiment  rushing  upon 
Midian  in  the  strength  of  their  faith,  we  see  two 
men  carefully  picking  their  way  from  bush  to  bush 
in  the  darkness  to  where  the  camp  fires  of  Midian 
glimmer  across  the  plain.  Instead  of  the  sweep  of 
the  inspired  band,  every  throat  of  the  three 
hundred  loud  with  triumph,  we  have  the  leader, 
the  principal  life  in  the  enterprise,  checking  every 
second  breath  he  draws,  as  he  feels  how  his  safety 
hangs  upon  the  breaking  of  a  twig,  or  the  wake- 
fulness of  an  Arab  sentry.  Contrast  Gideon  under 
that  first  inspiration  of  the  evening,  when  God 
offered  him  victory  for  the  rush  at  it,  and  Gideon 
now  crawling  from  cover  to  cover,  conscious  that 
his  life  and  the  cause  committed  to  him  hang  upon 
the  breaking  of  a  twig,  the  flicker  of  a  flame : 
whether,  it  may  be,  that  half-asleep  Ishmaelite 
on  the  outermost  part  of  the  camp  will  have  energy 
enough  to  kick  the  bit  of  bush  his  feet  are  toying 
with  into  the  fire  and  scatter  its  light  five  feet 
further  into  the  darkness — for  if  he  does,  Gideon 
will  be  seen. 

Now,  that  is  a  strange  plunge  from  the  ideal  to 


214  GIDEON.     II 

the  actual,  and  yet,  I  suppose,  there  never  yet  was 
a  great  leader,  there  was  hardly  ever  a  common 
soldier  of  God,  who  did  not  have  to  pass 
through  the  same  train  of  experiences:  when 
at  one  hour  he  felt  the  hand  of  God  upon 
him  in  the  conviction  of  immediate  victory,  and 
the  next  was  groping  his  uncertain  way  towards  a 
preliminary  understanding  of  the  situation  on 
which  God  had  called  him  to  act.  Take  Cromwell 
again  for  illustration.  There  is  evidence  that  in 
the  early  days  of  his  military  career  he  was  not 
without  occasions  of  feeling  that  God  would  give 
him  the  victory  soon ;  but  then  he  was  plunged 
into  all  his  commissariat  troubles :  seeking  some 
twenty  more  muskets  for  his  men,  or  half  a  dozen 
uniforms;  writing  letters  to  drag  the  arrears  of 
their  pay  out  of  the  authorities ;  or  settling  quar- 
rels among  his  fellow-officers. 

It  is  so  with  every  one  of  us,  whether  the  work 
before  us  be  that  of  some  great  cause  to  which  God 
has  called  us,  or  the  building  of  our  own  character. 
Gideon's  preliminary  miracle  comes  surely  to 
all :  the  inspiration  of  God's  word  in  our  hearts,  the 
conviction  that  the  great  hope  is  within  reach,  or 
that    moral    victory   and    peace   are    immediately 


GIDEON.     II  215 

possible.  But  this  never  excludes  the  need  of  a 
knowledge  of  the  situation  ;  the  use  of  means ;  the 
going  down  upon  painful  and,  it  may  be,  perilous 
tasks,  when  in  the  darkness  all  the  sense  of  your 
frailty  comes  upon  you,  and  in  spite  of  God's  voice, 
so  strong  a  few  hours  back,  you  feel  your  mission 
or  your  character  hanging  on  things  as  trifling  as 
the  breaking  twigs  and  flickering  flames  at  which 
Gideon  checked  his  breath  that  night  on  Esdraelon. 
Is  it  a  work  you  have  got  to  do  for  God  in  the 
world  ^  Then,  He  has  not  called  you  to  it  without 
the  promise  of  victory ;  and  there  come  baptisms 
of  conviction  from  His  hand,  under  the  power  of 
which  you  feel  as  if  it  were  to  be  won  for  the  rush 
at  it.  But  do  not  count  on  that  as  everything.  It 
is  real,  and  given  to  you  for  strength,  but  do  not 
expect  it  to  start  wings  on  your  shoulders  or  that 
the  rest  of  your  career  is  to  be  a  flight.  Do  not  be 
disappointed,  if  in  a  few  hours  duty  sends  you 
painfully  to  grope  your  way  through  the  dangerous 
and  unknown.  Victory  is  certain  ;  but  you  have 
got  the  situation  to  learn ;  you  have  got  the  enemy 
to  understand ;  you  have  got  the  slow,  dead  work 
of  a  scout  to  do,  before  you  can  lead  the  forces  you 
feel  behind  you  to  their  promised  triumph. 


2i6  GIDEON.     II 

But  it  may  be  character  which  God  is  inspiring 
you  to  win.  Which  of  us  does  He  not  so  inspire  ? 
Is  there  any  man  here  who  has  not  felt  that  most 
wonderful  miracle  which  God's  Spirit  works  upon 
earth — the  conviction  that  for  him,  a  poor  sinner, 
foiled  and  shamed  on  many  fields  of  moral  battle, 
a  clean  heart  and  the  brave  doing  of  God's 
will  are  still  possible.  Surely  every  one  of  us  has 
known  what  it  is  to  believe  that.  Now,  by  the 
God  of  Gideon,  do  not  let  us  be  disheartened  if 
such  moments  of  assurance  are  followed  by  long, 
dull  days  in  which  we  feel  far  otherwise.  Days  of 
slow  progress  across  a  ground  covered  with 
slumbering  temptations,  which  any  moment  may 
spring  to  assault  us,  and  we  feel  our  whole 
character  at  peril.  It  is  then  our  duty  simply 
to  be  watchful,  and  to  fulfil  our  scouting 
by  vigilance  and  prayer.  God  has  sent  us 
among  the  enemy  that  we  may  know  his 
strength  ;  and  if  instead  of  losing  our  conscience, 
as  so  many  do,  in  a  moral  panic  at  the  easily 
wakened  temptations  by  which  they  are  sur- 
rounded, we  exercise  self-restraint,  and,  above  all, 
employ  that  prayer,  which  casts  all  surrounding 
temptations  into  deeper  sleep,  we  shall  win  through, 


GIDEON.     II  217 

and  have  back  again  our  hours  of  moral  security 
and  power.  In  Bunyan's  allegory,  the  Pilgrim 
did  not  arrive  at  the  House  Beautiful  except  by 
passing  between  lions  placed  there  for  the  trial  of 
faith  where  it  is,  and  for  the  discovery  of  those  that 
have  none.  He  must  have  had  between  them  as 
anxious  a  time  as  Gideon  among  the  Midianites. 
But  he  obeyed  his  orders  to  keep  in  the  midst  of 
the  path,  and  went  on  with  prayer,  till  that  night 
his  lodging  was  in  the  chamber  called  Peace,  where 
he  sang  as  he  awoke  in  the  morning  that  he  felt 
already  next  door  to  Heaven. 

Young  men,  do  not,  I  repeat,  be  disheartened  by 
temptation.  If  you  have  in  your  heart  the  real 
miracle :  the  knowledge  that  God  has  made  you  for 
Himself,  that  you  are  His  sons,  and  that  by  Christ 
He  has  promised  to  give  you  the  victory,  hold  on 
in  the  strength  of  that ;  and  your  hours  of  walking 
painfully  through  a  land  of  temptations,  where  you 
feel  your  weakness  and  loneliness,  will  open  to 
days  of  power  and  of  the  assurance  of  victory. 


XIII 
THE    SONG   OF   THE   WELL 

And  thence  to  Be'er  :  this  is  the  Be*er  [or  Well]  of  which  the 
Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Gather  the  people  together  and  I 
will  give  them  water.     Then  sang  Israel  this  song  ; 

Spriiig  up,  O  well !     Sing  ye  back  to  her  ! 
Well  which  princes  digged, 
Which  nobles  of  the  people  delved, 
With  the  sceptre  and  with  their  staves, 
[From  the  desert  a  gift].' — Numbers  xxi.  16-18. 

T  N  Eastern  life,  there  is  no  drudgery  worse  than 
■*-  that  of  drawing  water.  Hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water  is  the  Bible's  name  for  slaves  of 
the  lowest  class.  You  read  the  proof  on  the  lips 
of  the  Well  itself,  where  the  soft  ropes  dragged 

^Professor  Budde  has  proposed  to  take  this  line  from  the 
connecting  prose  of  the  itinerary  to  which  it  is  assigned  in  our 
version,  From  {the)  wilderness  fe  Mattanah  (a  name  which  means 
pft)f  and  to  add  it  to  the  song. 


THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL     219 

daily  through  the  centuries  have  cut  deep  into  the 
stone ;  and  again  on  the  lined  faces  of  the  daughters 
of  the  people,  as  they  gather  to  their  task.  Eliezer 
of  Damascus  found  a  bride  at  the  Well,  but  that 
was  in  the  morning  of  the  world.  She  whom 
Christ  encountered  was  a  drudge,  whose  first 
prayer  to  Him  was :  Sir,  give  me  this  water,  that  1 
thirst  not,  neither  come  all  the  way  hither  to  draw. 
The  tramp  to  the  Well,  the  frequent  quarrel 
for  one's  turn,  the  strain  to  lift  the  bucket  from 
the  deep  pool,  the  climb  home  again  with  the 
high,  full  jar  on  the  head — it  is  all  a  constant 
weariness  and  almost  unrelieved.  For  in  the 
East,  women  while  at  work  seldom  or  never 
sing. 

Where  men  address  themselves  to  the  task,  as 
ishepherds  have  to  do,  they  often  sing ;  and  their 
singing  is  sometimes  of  the  kind  which  glorifies 
their  labour  with  memory  and  with  hope.  Such  an 
effort  we  find  in  the  Song  before  us.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  ancient  pieces  of  Scripture,  but  long 
before  it  became  Scripture,  it  had  descended, 
perhaps  through  many  generations,  on  the  lips  of 
labour,  in  the  open  air  and  sunshine,  where  the 
gravel  rattles  under  the  feet  of  the  shepherds,  in 


220     THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL 

the  places  of  drawing  water.  Wherever  the  WelJ 
may  have  been  at  whose  starting  this  Song  was 
first  sung,  the  verses  were  probably  handed  down 
through  the  daily  routine  of  many  wells.  In 
Palestine,  there  are  watering-places  which  arc  at 
once  fountains  and  cisterns.  A  deep  shaft  has 
been  sunk  near  some  dry  torrent  bed  to  release 
the  underground  waters;  and  though  the  water 
lives  and  leaps  below,  a  long  pull  is  required 
to  bring  it  to  the  surface.  The  drawers  who  sang 
this  song  knew  that  their  well  was  alive.  They 
called  to  each  other  to  sing  back  to  it:  the  verb 
means  to  sing  in  antiphon,  to  answer  the  music  of 
the  waters  with  their  own.  That  spirt  in  the  dark 
hollow  was  not  the  only  well-spring ;  the  men's 
hearts  gushed  back  to  it :  fountain  called  to  foun- 
tain, 

Spring  ufy  O  xoell!    Sing  ye  back  to  it. 

And  the  human  music  is  worthy  of  the  other, 
it  recalls  that  condition  of  life  which  is  ideal,  to 
which  nations  look  back  as  their  golden  age,  to 
which  a  living  Church  looks  forward  as  part  of  the 
coming  Kingdom  of  the  Father :  men  of  all  ranks 
as  brothers,  and  sharing  the  work  which  is  indis- 
pensable to  the  common  weal.     For  I  do  not  feel 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL     221 

that   the   opinion   is   correct   which  explains   the 

lines, 

Welly  which  princes  digged. 

Nobles  of  the  people  delved  it 

With  the  sceptre  and  with  their  stavis, 

as  if  these  celebrated  some  separate  function  of  the 
leaders  of  the  people,  either  by  the  use  of  the 
divining-rod  to  discover  the  water,  or  by  a  solemn 
ritual,  before  the  common  labourers  opened  the 
ground.  The  words  dig  and  delve  are  too 
thorough  for  such  a  meaning  and  compel  us  to 
interpret  the  verses  as  describing  the  share  which 
the  princes  and  nobles  took  in  turning  up  the  soil. 
They  delved^  they  dug.  And  thus,  generation 
after  generation  of  water-drawers  was  reminded 
that  their  well  had  been  started  by  great  men ;  that 
the  work,  which  now  meant  drudgery,  was  in  its 
origin  invention,  zeal,  high-born  character,  self- 
sacrifice,  loyal  brotherhood.  To  recall  this  would 
take  away  from  the  workers  the  sense  of  servitude. 
Duties  which  had  such  memories  could  never 
become  cheap.  The  baptism  which  had  blessed 
the  work  in  the  beginning  was  upon  it  still. 


222     THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL 


In  such  a  Song,  I  find  much  inspiration.  We 
are  all,  whatever  our  callings  may  be,  ministers  of 
the  common  life,  with  the  constant  need  to  ennoble 
and  glorify  its  routine.  All  of  us  who  arc  worthy 
to  work,  have  to  do  with  wearisome  details ;  and 
as  it  were,  like  those  Eastern  water-drawers,  hand 
over  hand  every  day  upon  the  same  old  ropes. 
And  the  tendency  of  many,  even  of  those  whose  is 
the  ministry  of  the  Word  and  the  Church,  is  to 
feel  their  life  dreary  and  their  work  cheap.  We 
leave  romance  to  the  soldier,  wonder  to  the  man  of 
science,  and  to  the  statesman  the  nobility  of 
standing  in  a  great  succession.  We  come  to  regard 
our  work  as  merely  privative  and  exhausting; 
and  are  tempted  to  seek  our  inspiration  in  getting 
away  from  it,  through  literature  and  art,  into  lives 
which  we  imagine  more  blessed  than  our  own 
with  the  heritage  of  great  memories.  What  fools 
we  are  1  Literature  and  art  have  no  more  real  use 
for  us  than  to  throw  us  back  with  new  light  upon 
ourselves  and  our  work  :  showing  us  how  high  we 
stand,  and  how  glorious  it  may  be.  This  is  what 
their  song  did  for  the  drawers  of  water.     And  in 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL     223 

every  piece  of  hard  work  you  engage  in,  so  it  be 
honest  and  helpful  to  the  progress  of  society,  the 
same  inspiring  memories  are  at  your  disposal  which 
were  theirs  who  sang  of  the  princes  that  dug 
their  well,  and  the  nobles  who  delved  it  with  their 
sceptres  and  their  staves.  There  is  not  a  bit  of 
routine,  however  cheap  our  unthinking  minds  may 
count  it,  but  it  was  started  by  genius.  The  funda- 
mental facilities  of  life,  the  things  we  use  as  care- 
lessly as  we  tread  the  pavement :  the  fire  we  light, 
the  alphabet  we  use,  our  daily  bread,  the  coins  we 
handle,  the  wheels  that  carry  us  along,  the  glass 
through  which  we  see  heaven — each  of  them  repre- 
sents some  early  venture  of  man's  spirit  even 
greater  in  its  influence  on  the  race  than  those 
inventions  and  discoveries  which  we  count  the 
crowning  glories  of  our  crowning  century.  The 
very  language  we  use — Chaucer's,  Shakespeare's, 
Milton's  were  the  mouths  that  forged  it.  We  can 
hardly  utter  a  great  word,  or  a  variation  of  its 
meaning,  without  moulding  our  lips  to  the  accent 
and  emphasis  of  some  original  spirit.  There  is 
not  a  crank  the  miller  turns,  not  an  engine  or  brake 
upon  our  railways,  not  a  boat  that  sails  our  seas, 
but  required  character  and,  in  many  cases,  genius, 


224     THE    SONG   OF   THE    WELL 

for  Its  invention  and  employment  in  the  service  of 
humanity.  In  manual  toil,  in  commerce,  in  educa- 
tion, in  healing,  and  in  public  service,  not  a  bit  of 
routine  rolls  on  its  way  but  the  saints  and  the 
heroes  were  at  the  start  of  it.  Princes  dug  this 
Welly  yea  the  nobles  of  the  people  delved  it  with 
the  sceptre  and  with  their  staves. 

If  I  rehearse  these  commonplaces,  it  is  only  that 
we  may  feel  how  our  life,  in  the  fibre  and  grain  of 
it,  is  saturated  with  this  purple  wonder :  the  love 
and  the  blood  of  the  hearts  of  the  greatest.  In 
our  day  there  are  those  who  say  that  knowledge, 
like  the  pitiless  Eastern  Sun,  the  more  it  rises  the 
more  it  bleaches  life ;  taking  the  dear  twilight  out 
of  the  air  and  colour  and  wonder  from  the  things 
about  us.  That  is  not  true.  Knowledge  can 
never  take  the  wonder  out  of  God's  world,  nor 
faith  in  God  Himself.  It  is  he  who  refuses  to  be 
taught  who  loses  the  charm  and  solemnity  of  life. 
Cease  to  learn,  and  in  time  you  will  starve  the 
faculties  of  admiration,  of  reverence,  and  of  grati- 
tude, which  in  their  union  are  worship  and  the 
very  strength  of  a  spiritual  faith.  But  among  all 
her  services  to  us,  knowledge  can  perform  none 
more  religious  than  this:  to  take  us  back  to  the 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL     225 

inspired  origin  of  all  common  things  we  handle  or 
administer.  She  teaches  us  that  nothing  is  cheap. 
She  reminds  us  whom  we  have  succeeded;  from 
what  great  and  wounded  hands  our  various  charges 
in  life  have  been  left  to  us ;  by  what  a  cloud  of 
witnesses  we  are  surrounded. 

Before  we  conclude  we  shall  see  how  this  lesson 
runs  through  the  routine  of  our  congregational 
life :  let  us  now  remember  it  along  two  other 
lines  of  work,  where  its  inspiration  is  equally 
needed.  There  is,  for  instance,  teaching.  Where 
may  memory  bring  a  stronger  inspiration  than 
just  here-f^  Where  are  more  recollections  of  the 
loftiest  minds  putting  themselves  to  the  common 
service ;  and  not  only  by  their  devotion  ennobling 
what  must  often  seem  petty  details  and  monoton- 
ous methods ;  but  by  their  fellowship  lightening 
our  responsibilities,  and  by  their  invention  and 
their  courage  heartening  us  to  changes  and 
improvements  of  our  own.  Another  application 
is  for  all  of  us.  We  live  under  a  political  dispen- 
sation, in  which  the  offices  of  government  are 
shared  by  the  crowd;  and  the  commonweal  is 
achieved  not  by  the  genius  or  force  of  the  few, 
but  by  the  patient  routine  of  innumerable  citizens ; 


226     THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL 

working  through  local  councils,  boards,  committees 
and  other  institutions.  Now  where  such  labour 
seems  stale  and  weary,  let  us  carry  into  it 
the  memory  of  its  historical  origins.  Let  us 
remember  not  only  who  dug  for  us  these  wells  we 
daily  serve,  but  by  what  sacrifice  of  costly  lives  the 
ground  was  cleared  and  defended  against  the 
oppressor ;  and  by  what  steadfastness  of  character 
the  water  has  been  kept  pure.  If  high  and  low 
among  us  had  vision  of  all  this,  the  political  life 
of  our  land  would  glow  with  a  splendour  like  the 
purple  glories  of  her  summer  hills. 

II 

But  the  Light,  which  lighteneth  every  man  that 
Cometh  into  the  world,  Himself  took  flesh  and 
dwelt  among  us.  Among  the  million  memories  of 
men  we  have  one  that  is  unique.  We  can  trace  the 
sacredness  and  glory  of  our  life  to-day,  not  only  to 
this  or  that  great  man  whom  God  raised  up  to 
think  and  to  work,  but  to  the  Incarnation  of  God 
Himself.  In  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  God 
Himself  did  dig  these  wells  of  ours.  The 
liberties,  offices  and  inspirations,  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  were  opened  and  fulfilled  by  Jesus  Christ. 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL     227 

The  life  which  other  men  illustrated  and  ennobled 
in  fragments,  was  suffered  and  achieved  by  Him 
in  perfect  purity.  He  fulfilled  all  our  relations, 
felt  all  our  temptations,  bore  all  our  burdens  and 
sorrows.  The  Incarnation  was  not  the  abstraction 
with  which  many  a  theology  has  been  content. 
The  Incarnation  of  the  Gospels  was  a  birth  into 
a  home,  a  looking  up  into  a  mother's  face,  child- 
hood with  brothers  and  sisters  about  it ;  youth 
taking  friends  to  itself ;  manhood  breaking  with 
these  friends  into  the  larger  life  of  the  nation.  It 
was — in  home  and  workshop — obedience,  discip- 
line and  labour.  It  was — abroad — ^journeying, 
ministering  by  the  roadside,  teaching,  debate. 
See  how  His  parables  reveal  Him  in  touch  with 
every  common  office  of  society!  Servants  and 
masters,  judges  and  clients,  kings  and  their  lieu- 
tenants ;  the  fisherman,  the  shepherd,  the  husband- 
man, the  delver  finding  treasure;  the  beggar  at 
the  gate,  the  unemployed  in  the  market  place,  the 
steward  and  the  merchantman — see  how  He  lived 
the  lives  of  all  these  men,  glorifying  their  routine, 
and  using  their  relations  and  tempers  and  methods 
as  illustrations  of  God's  relations  with  us,  and  of 
how  we  ought  to  seek  and  may  find  Him. 


228     THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL 

The  Parables  are  the  measure  of  the  breadth  of 
our  Lord's  Incarnation  ;  but  His  Temptation,  His 
Pain  and  Weariness,  His  Shame  of  the  world's  sin, 
His  Agony  and  Forsakenness,  His  Cross  and 
Death,  are  its  depths. 

When  we  remember  breadth  and  depth  alike,  we 
understand  how  sacramental  every  hour  of  life  may 
be.  Of  that  special  ordinance  of  our  Lord's 
institution,  wherein  is  shown  forth  to  believers  the 
saving  grace  of  His  Death  for  sin,  He  said, 
This  do  in  remembrance  of  me.  If  a  man's  faith 
begin  there  he  shall  indeed  have  penitence  enough, 
and  freedom  and  love  enough  to  fulfil  the  life  of 
which  that  Death  was  the  redemption  from  impot- 
ence and  despair.  But  let  not  his  remembrance 
stop  there ;  for  by  the  fulness  of  the  Incarnation 
there  is  no  part  of  common  life  which  may  not  also 
be  a  memorial  of  the  Lord.  /  will  make^  He  said 
by  the  prophets,  the  place  of  my  feet  glorious. 
There  is  no  place  which  to-day  is  the  place  of  our 
feet,  in  the  paths  of  duty  or  of  suffering,  but  it  has 
been  the  place  of  His  feet  as  well;  and  the  air 
about  it  is  full  of  His  patience  and  His  victory. 
Live  dutifully,  obediently,  resolutely,  and  all  you 
have  to  do  you  shall  do  in  His  remembrance.    You 


THE   SONG   OF   THE   WELL     229 

may  make  life  one  whole  sacrament.  And  if  your 
fiiith  and  understanding  be  really  awake,  this 
hourly  sacrament  of  life  shall  be  as  the  sacrament 
of  His  Death,  not  a  memorial  only  but  communion 
with  Himself.  You  shall  be  like  her  who  found 
Him  seated  on  the  Well,  which  was  her  routine  and 
daily  drudgery.  He  will  not  take  the  drudgery 
away,  even  as  He  gave  no  answer  to  her  first 
prayer :  5Jr,  give  me  of  this  water^  that  1  thirst  not 
neither  come  hither  to  draw.  But  He  gave  her 
that  which  she  carried  with  her  in  her  heart,  every 
time  she  came  back  with  her  jar ;  finding  Himself 
not  by  the  Well  only,  but  on  the  road,  and  in  her 
home,  till  her  daily  work  grew  a  communion  with 
Him.  So  may  it  be  with  us  if  we  be  found  of 
Him  as  she  was.  5ir,  thou  hast  nothing  to  draw 
and  the  well  is  deep;  whence  then  hast  thou  that 
living  water  f  She  received  her  answer  when  He 
fathomed  the  deeper  well  of  her  own  heart,  when 
He  cleansed  it,  and  by  His  word  called  to  spring 
up  in  it  the  water  of  life. 

In  this  confimand  of  the  spiritual  life  of  man, 
Jesus  stands  alone.  His  power  over  it  reaches  the 
pitch  of  creative  force.  It  is  well  for  us  to  sum- 
mon up  the  multitude  of  our  forerunners,  our  big 


230     THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL 

brothers  of  the  crowd,  not  only  that  we  may  praise 
Him  who  is  the  Light  that  lighteneth  all ;  but  that 
we  may  confess  the  end  of  their  help  where  His 
begins.  Helpful  they  are  as  fellow- worshippers 
and  fellow-workers,  with  their  example  and  their 
infection  of  energy  and  patience.  But  He  hath 
entered  within  the  veil.  Helpful  they  are  in  the 
outer  sunshine  or  storm  of  life ;  helpful  in  their 
testimony  that  God  was  with  them,  our  brothers, 
in  the  work  in  which  we  have  succeeded  them. 
But  He  hath  entered  within  the  veil.  In  the 
loneliness  of  sin,  on  the  battle  ground  of  tempta- 
tion we  know  how  far  away  the  crowd  feels ;  how 
irrelevant  our  brothers'  merit,  how  helpless  our 
brothers'  love.  It  is  just  there  that  Christ  pene- 
trates and  proves  Himself  Divine.  Of  our  guilt 
He  tells  us,  I  have  borne  it,  and  thou  art  forgiven  ; 
of  our  sin,  This  is  my  charge ;  of  our  weakness, 
My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee ;  of  our  shame  and 
our  hopelessness,  I  trust  thee  with  my  work ;  be  of 
good  cheer ;  go  and  do  it. 

Other  forces  have  helped  men  to  penitence,  but 
it  is  a  historical  fact  that  nowhere  have  men  found 
penitence  so  real  as  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross  of 
Christ.     Other  voices  have  proclaimed  the  need  of 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    WELL     231 

a  new  birth :  He  alone  has  been  able  to  make  the 
dead  soul  live.  Therefore,  while  we  thank  God 
that  our  common  life  is  everywhere  glorified 
by  the  memories  of  the  great,  and  that  the  air  is 
full  of  hope,  because  there  is  no  spot  we  can  tread 
or  work  we  are  called  to  perform,  but  was  the  field 
or  the  trophy  of  some  heroism  of  a  brother  spirit, 
let  us  remember  above  all  that  we  have  Christ 
Himself,  through  whom  God  hath  appointed  us 
to  obtain  salvation. 

Ill 

These  religious  uses  of  memory,  we  are  now 
ready  to  apply  to  that  routine,  to  which  we  are 
bound  as  members  and  ministers  of  Christ's 
Church.  I  do  not  mean  the  life  of  the  Church  as 
a  whole,  but  the  work  and  conduct  of  the  single 
congregation.  In  our  day  the  Christian  congrega- 
tion suffers  from  much  depreciation,  due  to  a 
conspiracy  of  causes,  both  within  and  without  the 
Church,  which  it  is  not  now  necessary  to  detail. 
In  face  of  them  the  recollection  may  be  useful  of 
what  opportunities  and  what  inspirations  some  of 
the  greatest  men  and  women  have  found  in  the 
instrument  which  we  administer.     Of  no  other 


232     THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL 

routine  in  social  life  may  we  more  justly  say  that 
princes  digged  this  welly  that  the  nobles  of  the 
people  delved  it  with  the  sceptre  and  with  their 
staves. 

The  influence  of  the  Christian  congregation 
upon  history,  the  contribution  of  the  parish  to  the 
world,  is  a  subject  which  is  waiting  for  a  historian. 
He  will  lay  bare  a  thousand  almost  forgotten  wells, 
which  from  all  the  centuries  still  feed  some  of  the 
strongest  currents  of  human  life.  Many  types  of 
character ;  much  that  is  imperishable  in  literature 
and  art;  much  that  has  become  world-wide  in 
education  and  the  organisation  of  charity,  have 
found  their  origins  in  congregational  life. 

To  prove  this  we  may  begin  with  the  Bible. 
The  Psalter,  now  the  confessional  of  half  humanity, 
was  at  first  the  hymn  book  of  a  little  mountain 
sanctuary  and  congregation  in  one  of  the  most 
obscure  provinces  of  the  world.  The  Epistles, 
cherished  as  the  Word  of  God,  were  originally 
addressed  to  small  conventicles  of  men  and 
women ;  and  are  engaged  with  the  circumstances, 
the  duties,  the  scandals  and  the  sins  of  congrega- 
tional life.  When  we  pass  from  the  Canon  to  the 
early  history  of  the  Church  we  find  illustrations  of 


THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL     233 

the  same  truth.  The  most  dignified  offices  in  the 
Church  Catholic  were  originally,  as  their  titles 
imply,  offices  within  the  congregation.  Individual 
churches  were  the  first  to  organise  relief  for  the 
sick  poor,  and  the  means  of  redemption  for  the 
slave.  Monasteries  proved  the  fertile  mothers  of 
art  and  literature ;  and  kings  were  sometimes  the 
indispensable  patrons  of  the  same.  But  we  cannot 
forget  that  many  of  the  finest  ecclesiastical 
buildings  were  originally  parish  churches,  and 
represent  the  piety  and  the  skill  of  local  congrega- 
tions. Character  was  often  wonderfully  developed 
in  the  cloister,  and  magnificently  exercised  upon  the 
high  places  of  the  Church  ;  but  it  was  at  the  parish 
font  that  her  saints  were  baptized  into  Christ ;  in 
the  parish  school  and  from  the  parish  pulpit  that 
they  were  taught  the  mind  of  Christ ;  and  by  the 
example  and  the  prayers  of  ordinary  congregations, 
that  their  characters  were  first  tempered. 

The  same  is  equally  conspicuous  after  the 
Reformation.  From  that  event  to  our  own  day 
many  of  the  enduring  monuments  of  Christianity 
have  been  produced  in  the  ordinary  course  of  a 
parish  ministry  and  in  order  to  meet  some  exigency 
of  congregational  experience.     Not  to  weary  you, 


234     THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL 

let  me  take  one  or  two  instances  from  either  end  of 
the  history  of  the  Reformed  Church.  We  all 
know  Luther's  hymns,  which  are  as  national 
anthems  in  their  fatherland,  and  even  in  translation 
so  inspiring  to  ourselves.  They  sprang  out  of  the 
needs  of  a  little  congregation.  Being  settled  as 
pastor  at  Wittenberg,  and  realising  that  his  flock 
could  not  express  their  evangelical  experience  in  the 
old  Church  chants,  Luther,  who  had  never  before 
made  verses,  stood  up  and  struck  out  of  himself 
those  few  imperishable  hymns.  Take  another 
singer,  whose  hymns  will  be  sung  as  long  as  there 
is  a  Church  upon  earth.  Isaac  Watts  was  a  young 
man  in  a  little  congregational  church  in  the  south 
of  England,  in  which  many  of  the  hymns  were 
tedious  doggerel.  When  he  complained  he  was 
challenged  to  produce  something  better ;  and  this 
was  the  origin  of  the  long  series  of  hymns  which 
include  "  O  God,  our  help  in  ages  past,"  "  Before 
Jehovah's  awful  throne  "  and  "  When  I  survey  the 
wondrous  Cross."  Nearer  our  own  day  are  two 
other  instances  which  I  may  quote.  Chalmers' 
system  of  poor-relief,  of  which  the  last  has  not  been 
heard,  arose  from  his  labours  and  observations 
among  the  poor  of  his  own  parish  in  Glasgow. 


THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL     235 

And  those  classics  of  our  language,  Newman's 
Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons^  were  written  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  his  ministry,  and  many  of  the 
finest,  we  are  told,  were  preached  to  his  afternoon 
congregations,  composed  of  the  humbler  classes  of 
society. 

To  these  instances,  almost  taken  at  random,  I 
might  add  the  testimonies  of  strong  men,  and  the 
most  of  them  not  Churchmen ;  as  for  example 
Wordsworth,  Carlyle,  Browning  and  Ruskin,  who 
have  left  on  record  their  witness  to  the  value  of  the 
fellowship  or  the  ministry  of  humble  congregations. 
In  writing  (in  1866)  of  the  little  church  in 
Dumfriesshire  to  which  his  parents  took  him  when 
a  child  Carlyle  says :  "  Very  venerable  are  those  old 
Seceder  clergy  to  me  now,  when  I  look  back.  .  .  . 
Most  figures  of  them  in  my  time  were  hoary,  old 
men ;  men  so  like  evangelists  in  modern  vesture 
and  poor  scholars  and  gentlemen  of  Christ,  I  have 
nowhere  met  with  among  Protestant  or  Papal 
clergy  in  any  country  in  the  world.  .  .  .  That 
poor  temple  of  my  childhood  is  more  sacred  to  me 
than  the  biggest  cathedral  then  extant  could  have 
been ;  rude,  rustic,  bare,  no  temple  in  the  world 
was  more  so;   but  there  were  sacred  lambencies, 


236     THE    SONG    OF   THE    WELL 

tongues  of  authentic  flame,  which  kindled  what 
was  best  in  one,  what  has  not  yet  gone  out."* 
Browning  in  his  Christmas  Eve  comes  back  to  the 
little  squalid  conventicle  from  which  he  burst  in 
disgust,  and  gives  us  these  lines  about  it. 

"  I  then  in  ignorance  and  weakness 
Taking  God's  help  have  attained  to  think 
My  heart  does  best  to  receive  in  meekness 
That  mode  of  worship  as  most  to  his  mind 
Where  earthly  aids  being  cast  behind 
His  All  in  All  appears  serene 
With  the  thinnest  human  veil  between. 

It  were  to  be  wished  that  the  flaws  were  fewer 

In  the  earthen  vessel  holding  treasure, 

Which  lies  as  safe  in  a  golden  ewer  ; 

But  the  main  thing  is,  does  it  hold  good  measure. 

Heaven  soon  sets  right  all  other  matters." 

I  have  quoted  enough.  There  has  been  in  the 
past  under  God  no  instrument  which  He  has 
blessed  more  than  the  ordinary  routine  of  congre- 
gational ministry.  Genius  has  found  her  occasions 
in  its  needs;  the  greatest  characters  have  traced 
their  qualities  to  its  discipline ;  the  most  permanent 
and  glorious  fruits  of  our  religion  have  sprung 
from  its  opportunities.  If,  then,  any  of  us  in  the 
iProude's  TAemas  CariyU,  Vol.  I.  ii,  12. 


THE    SONG   OF   THE    WELL     237 

course  of  his  ministry  grows  lax  and  weary  as 
though  he  served  an  institution  mean  and  uninspir- 
ing, let  him  stand  up  in  his  place  and  gird  himself 
with  memories  like  these.  New  vigour  and 
joyfulness  will  be  given  him,  new  powers  of 
aspiration  and  prayer.  His  heart  will  sing  back 
to  his  work,  and  he  will  answer  its  dear  details  with 
a  burst  of  praise. 

Spring  up,  O  well  I     Sing  ye  back  to  iti 
Well  which  the  princes  dugy 
The  nobles  of  the  people  delved  it 
With  the  sceptre  and  with  their  staves. 

But  while  he  is  conscious  of  so  great  a  cloud  of 
witnesses,  let  him  remember  above  all,  that  the 
Church  he  serves  is  that  which  Christ  bought  with 
His  blood ;  and  founded  upon  a  rock ;  and  that 
He  has  said  of  it :  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered 
together  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them* 


XIV 
SERMON   BEFORE   COMMUNION.     I 

He  restoreth  my  soul. — Psalm  xxiii.  3. 
I  am  the  Bread  of  Life. — John  vi.  35. 

TTl  ELIGION  is  a  fountain  of  life  or  nothing  at 
-■-^  all.  When  it  is  practised  as  a  round  of 
solemn  functions,  or  trusted  only  as  the  assurance 
of  a  future  salvation,  or  obeyed  as  a  series  of 
precepts  and  doctrines;  then  the  soul  is  deceived 
and  starved;  and  we  need  the  voice  of  Jesus  to 
cry  loudly  in  our  ears — /  came  that  they  may  have 
life^  and  that  they  may  have  it  abundantly} 

Every  heart  will  tell  itself  that  this  is  the 
gospel  which  it  requires.  To  every  man  left 
to  himself  life  means  loss :  a  steady  drain  of 
strength  and  purpose,  of  courage  and  hope,  of 
belief  in  the  worth  of  his  work  and  in  the  worth  of 
his  fellow-men.  Without  God  we  are  always 
^  lohn  X.  10. 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    239 

losing.  Even  conscience  survives  only  as  an  after- 
glow, and  the  best  of  habits  tend  to  grow 
mechanical  and  barren.  But  worse  still,  however 
hard,  beyond  our  fault,  the  strain  of  life  may  be, 
and  however  cruel  its  temptations,  we  cannot  in 
the  loss  they  bring  to  us  wholly  escape  the  sense  of 
responsibility  for  it.  I  do  not  speak  of  gross  sins, 
but  of  ordinary  selfishness,  of  treachery  to  ideals 
to  which  we  gave  ourselves,  of  neglect  of  light  and 
love  lavished  upon  us,  and  of  the  guilt  of  a  fre- 
quent cowardice  in  things  both  little  and  large. 
In  every  honest  man  these  breed  a  shame  and  a 
sickness  of  himself  ;  from  which  our  feeble  human 
nature,  finding  it  intolerable,  seeks  defence  by 
building  round  itself  a  great  shell  of  callousness 
and  indifference — a  remedy  infinitely  worse  than 
the  pains  it  alleviates,  for  while  they  were  at  least 
the  symptoms  of  life,  this  is  death. 

What  remedy  have  we  against  all  that  waste  of 
the  soul  except  by  receiving  God  and  His  daily 
gift  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ.-^  Our  only  hope  is 
that  He  shall  draw  us  forth  from  the  secrets  of  our 
own  heart  with  the  shame  and  mistrust  of  these 
removed ;  that  He  shall  interpret  to  us  a  meaning 
and  purpose  in  our  lives ;  impart  to  us  the  powers 


240    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 

of  His  own  nature;  infect  us  with  His  love  for 
men ;  and  so  send  us  on  our  way  with  a  hope  and 
courage  that  even  death  cannot  quench.  We  need 
these  things  from  God :  and  He  can  give  them  to 
us,  He  alone.  But  by  your  presence  here,  by 
your  waiting  on  an  ordinance,  which  means  nothing 
if  not  new  life  from  Him,  you  testify  to  a  very 
deep  sense  of  your  need  and  of  His  power  to  fill 
it.  Therefore,  I  turn  to  some  description  of  God's 
restoration  of  our  souls,  without  further  preface 
than  to  say  just  this. 

In  our  day  there  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  abroad 
to  the  effect  that  character,  or  the  moral  qualities 
which  compose  it,  cannot  be  communicated  from 
the  outside  to  the  soul  of  man.  A  distinction  is 
made  between  knowledge  and  character.  It  is 
said  that  knowledge  may  be  put  into  a  man,  but 
that  character  can  only  be  won  by  the  man's  own 
fighting  for  it,  or  cultivated  by  the  man's  own 
sedulous  gardening  of  his  heart.  It  is  vain,  say 
some,  to  talk  of  "  supermoral  "  grace,  or  of  sudden 
changes  in  the  state  of,  or  additions  to  the  amount 
of,  a  man's  character.  Such  a  thing  is  the  concep- 
tion of  a  magic  which  is  impossible  in  the  moral 
life,  and  which  can  only  be  injurious  to  the  latter 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    241 

by  absorbing  a  man's  attention  from  those  duties 
of  his  own  will  and  those  convictions  of  his 
own  responsibility,  by  which  alone  character  is 
bred  and  made  secure. 

Now  it  is  a  question  how  far  such  common 
assertions  of  outsiders  to  our  religion  are  due  to 
indolent  believers  themselves,  and  to  their  false 
sense  of  divine  grace,  as  if  this  were  a  thing  magi- 
cally or  mechanically  intruded  into  a  man's  mind 
without  the  operation  of  naturally  moral  forces 
either  on  the  part  of  Him  who  gives  or  on  the  part 
of  us  who  receive  it.  But  whoever  be  to  blame 
for  the  fallacy,  look  what  a  fallacy  it  is !  To  make 
such  a  distinction  between  knowledge  and  character 
and  to  say  that  knowledge  can  be  put  into  a  man 
from  the  outside  but  character  cannot,  is  false. 
There  is  not  a  bit  of  information,  however  slight, 
which  can  enter  the  mind  of  a  man,  without 
carrying  with  it,  for  good  or  evil,  some  influence 
on  his  character.  And  when  the  knowledge  thus 
introduced  is  of  high  moral  facts :  of  a  divine 
righteousness  and  love,  of  a  great  self-sacrifice  and 
patience,  of  a  full  victory  over  sin ;  such  a  know- 
ledge must  feed  the  soul — except  it  be  hardened  or 
hopelessly  corrupt — with  a  strength  of  character 


242    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 

past  all  calculation.  Yet  such  is  the  Christian 
religion.  It  is  knowledge  to  begin  with.  It  is  a 
proclamation  of  truth  :  what  God  is  in  His  Nature 
and  Character.  It  is  the  publication  of  good 
tidings  :  what  He  wills,  and  what  He  has  done,  for 
us  men.  And  our  faith  is  not  the  intellectual  con- 
ception of  these  things,  as  if  we  could  shut  off 
heart  and  conscience  from  them,  but  it  is  the 
opening  of  our  whole  nature  to  their  moral 
influences.  God  is  Himself  the  maker  of  that 
nature,  and  when  His  grace  comes  to  us 
it  is  not  by  some  unnatural  or  magical 
way,  that  avoids  or  overbears  the  faculties 
with  which  He  has  Himself  endowed  us ; 
but  it  uses  these  to  persuade,  inspire  and 
save  us  from  death.  He  restoreth  my  soul:  the 
soul  He  has  Himself  created.  Do  not  let  us  be 
misled  because  some  have  labelled  this  process  with 
the  names  "  arbitrary,"  "  magical,"  and  "  super- 
moral."  Where,  in  the  process,  is  there  anything 
hostile  to  morality.^  or  anything  that  is  not 
natural.'^  It  is  not  a  process  in  which  upon  one 
side  there  is  a  bare  Authority  or  Force,  and  on  the 
other  a  slave's  mind  or  dead  matter.  But  it  is  a 
process  in  which  the  purest  moral  forces  arc  awake 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    243 

on  both  sides,  and  I  will  add,  no  forces  that  are  not 
moral.  God  comes  to  us  men,  how  ?  In  nothing 
but  the  bare  strength  of  His  Holiness  and  Love, 
in  the  power  of  a  great  self-sacrifice,  in  the  testi- 
mony of  the  moral  redemption  of  countless  lives 
like  our  own.  And  we  meet  Him,  how?  With 
an  honest  facing  of  the  truth  about  ourselves,  with 
a  quick  conscience,  with  the  sense  of  our  guilt  and 
need,  with  penitence  and  the  hunger  after 
righteousness.  Should  any  one  approach  this 
means  of  grace  with  the  imagination  of  a  magic 
influence  overbearing,  or  having  nothing  to  do 
with,  his  moral  faculties,  he  may  enjoy  an  hour's 
awe  or  an  hour's  enthusiasm.  But  he  will  not 
have  met  God,  nor  have  received  the  gift  of  life. 

Now  what  are  some  of  the  chief  details  of  this 
natural  and  wholly  moral  restoration  of  our  souls 
by  God  ?  Christ  has  set  it  forth  very  plainly  in  the 
Gospels — ^we  may  look  this  morning  at  three  of 
His  methods.  Firsts  by  beginning  at  the  begin- 
ning. Second,  by  awakening  in  us  the  conscience 
of  the  infinite  difference  between  obedience  and 
disobedience.  Thirdy  by  revealing  self-sacrifice 
as  the  only  secret  of  the  fulness  of  life. 


244    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 


First  then :  Deep  down  in  the  heart  of  every 
man,  wearied  and  weakened  by  sin,  lies  the  instinct 
that  for  him  restoration  can  only  come  through 
beginning  life  again  at  the  very  beginning ;  and 
Christ  is  worshipped  to-day  by  men  as  their 
Saviour,  because  He  has  a  gospel  and  a  power  to 
satisfy  this  instinct.  He  said  to  men,  come  back 
and  begin  again  at  the  beginning,  and,  trust- 
ing Him,  they  found  they  could.  He  did  not  do 
this  in  the  merely  negative  way  in  which  His 
Gospel  has  sometimes  been  misrepresented.  He 
did  not  only  say,  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee ;  live 
out  the  rest  of  thy  life,  sparingly  with  the  dregs 
thy  prodigal  past  has  spared  thee.  Nor  only,  Thou 
art  free,  go  thy  way.  He  did  not  leave  men  where 
their  life  had  run  to  sand.  He  led  them  back  to 
where  life  was  a  fountain.  Sometimes  He  did 
this  in  the  simplest  way.  When  the  woman  who 
had  sinned  was  left  alone  with  Him,  He  did  not 
only  say.  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee^  and  so  get 
rid  of  her.  He  added,  Go  and  sin  no  more.  What 
an  impossible  order  for  poor  mortals  to  receive! 
Yet  to  hear  Christ  say  it  is  not  only  to  hear  the 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    245 

command  but  to  feel  its  possibility.  And  why? 
Not  because  the  soul  is  overborne  by  a  magical 
influence,  which  works  without  respect  to  her  own 
powers.  But  because  Christ  makes  her  feel  that 
in  forgiving  her  God  infects  her  with  His  own 
yearning  for  her  purity,  constrains  her  faculties  by 
His  love,  enlists  her  will  among  the  highest  forces 
of  the  Universe,  and  the  purest  personalities 
of  her  own  kind,  and  above  all  trusts  her — 
there  is  no  more  natural  or  moral  power  in 
all  the  Universe  than  that  of  trust — trusts  her  to 
do  her  best  in  the  discipline  and  warfare  that  await 
her ;  trusts  her  to  be  loyal  to  Him,  and  trusts  her 
capacity  to  overcome.  My  brethren,  the  men  who 
believe  that  Christ  brings  to  them  these  divine 
affections,  retvirn  to  life  feeling  that  it  is  not  folly 
to  try  again,  feeling  that  they  dare  struggle  with 
temptation  once  more ;  feeling  that  victory  is  not 
impossible.  The  memories  of  failure  perish. 
Experience  is  discounted.  The  stinging,  sneering, 
unnerving  voices  of  the  past  are  silenced :  and  life 
is  re-started  from  the  beginning. 

It  is  only  another  way  to  state  all  this  when  we 
say  that  Christ  reveals  God  to  us  as  our  Father, 
and  makes  us  sure  that  we  are  His  children.    What 


246    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 

a  new  attitude  for  life!  How  it  is  rolled  away 
back  and  we  are  at  its  fountains  again,  with  all  its 
possibilities  before  us  I 

II 

If  we  carefully  read  the  Gospels,  we  shall  find 
that  next  to  revealing  the  Father,  our  Lord  insisted 
most  upon  the  infinite  difference  between  obedi- 
ence and  disobedience.  On  this  His  words  are 
always  stern  and  frequently  awful. 

Except  your  righteousness  exceed  the  righteous^ 
ness  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees^  ye  shall  in  nQ 
wise  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 

Te  have  heard  that  it  was  said  to  them  of  old 
time:  Thou  shah  not  killy  and  whosoever  shall  kill 
shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgement.  But  I  say 
unto  yoUy  whoso  is  angry  with  his  brother  without 
cause  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgement. 
Then  follow  His  still  more  penetrating  words 
about  adultery  and  lust.  And  the  Sermon  closes 
with  the  parable  of  the  builders.  Whoso  heareth 
these  sayings  of  mine^  and  doeth  them^  I  will  liken 
him  unto  a  wise  man,  which  built  his  house  upon 
the  rock.  And  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods 
camey  and  the  winds  blew  and  beat  upon  that  housey 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    247 

and  it  fell  not^  for  it  was  founded  on  the  rock. 
And  every  one  that  heareth  these  sayings  of  mine^ 
and  doeth  them  noty  shall  he  likened  unto  a  foolish 
man  who  built  his  house  upon  the  sand.  And  the 
rain  descended^  and  the  floods  came^  and  the  winds 
blew  and  beat  upon  that  house  and  it  felly  and  great 
was  the  fall  of  it. 

Can  we,  however  sleepy  or  dull  of  conscience 
we  may  be,  however  self-indulgent  or  flattered  by 
the  world — can  we  listen  to  words  like  these  with- 
out a  startling  restoration  of  the  soul  ?  From  such 
a  voice,  so  stern,  so  final,  we  cannot  go  back  to  do 
again  what  we  so  lightly  did  before :  to  the  tricks 
of  our  trade,  our  compromises  with  truth  and  duty, 
our  half-hearted  fulfilment  of  our  relations  with 
our  fellow-men.  The  infinite  alternatives  of  our 
life  are  laid  open  before  us.  Our  conscience  is 
again  awake. 

Yet  it  is  not  only  the  Lord's  words,  but  Him- 
self who  restoreth  our  soul.  How  He  lived, 
even  more  than  what  He  said,  is  our  conscience. 
You  know  the  plausible  habit  wc  all  slide  into  of 
giving  ourselves  this  or  that  indulgence  because  it 
is  within  our  right,  or  because  the  tempter  said 
it  was  natural      Then  there  rises  before  us  the 


248    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 

figure  of  the  Son  of  God  tempted  even  thus  in  the 
wilderness.  And  immediately  we  have  power  to 
see  that  a  thing  is  not  right  to  do  merely  because 
we  can  do  it,  or  because  it  lies  along  the  line  of  our 
natural  appetites.  And  our  soul  is  restored  as 
nothing  else  could  have  restored  it. 

Or  we  are  beginning  to  take  life  easy,  and  form 
low  views  of  the  possibilities  of  character.  God's 
will  does  not  appear  to  us  a  very  difficult  thing  to 
do.  We  hold  it  enough  to  be  pretty  regular  in 
our  prayers,  and  are  satisfied  with  aiming  at 
respectability  in  life.  Perhaps  the  generous  fires 
of  youth  have  died  down  and  we  are  content  with 
the  amiability,  the  fidelity  to  order  and  routine, 
the  mechanical  interest  of  a  few  invested  virtues, 
of  which  some  men  become  so  proud  with  age. 
In  the  long  low  levels  of  middle  life,  we  forget  the 
shortness  of  time  and  the  approach  of  judgment. 
With  the  years  we  fatally  learn  how  easy  it  is  to  hide 
our  faults  from  the  eyes  of  our  fellow  men :  and 
to  soothe  our  consciences  by  their  kindly  tolerance 
or  careless  indifference  to  our  inner  character. 
We  are  satisfied  with  the  fulfilment  of  a  few  per- 
sonal relations  near  to  us,  and  forget  the  sorrow 
and  the  sin  of  the  world  further  off.     Then  we 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    249 

look  to  Him  who  was  tempted  to  the  very  end,  and 
who  felt  in  every  temptation  an  awful  peril  to 
character ;  to  whom  the  doing  of  His  Father's  will 
was  a  struggle  and  an  agony ;  who  in  the  days  of 
His  flesh  offered  up  prayers  and  supplications  with 
strong  crying  and  tears y  and  was  heard  in  that  He 
feared — in  that  He  feared  ;  and  who  carried  to 
the  Cross  the  burden  of  the  world's  sin  and 
wretchedness.  As  we  take  up  to-day  the  memorials 
of  that  Passion  and  that  Death,  shall  we  not  be 
ashamed  of  our  easy  thoughts  of  life  ?  Let  us  enter 
the  fellowship  of  His  sufferings,  endue  ourselves 
with  His  sense  of  the  awful  difficulty  of  doing  the 
Father's  will,  and  while  we  work  out  our  own 
salvation  with  fear  and  trembling,  refuse  to  be 
selfishly  content  with  that  and  take  up  our  share  of 
the  world's  burdens  and  sorrows.  So  He  restoreth 
our  souls. 

Some,  at  an  opposite  extreme,  may  be  wearied. 
It  may  seem  to  some  hardly  worth  while  trying  to 
be  pure,  or  continuing  to  be  patient.  Some  may 
be  bitter  because  men  misunderstand  or  thwart 
them,  in  endeavours  which  they  know  to  be  in 
accordance  with  God's  will.  O  what  restoration 
it  is  to  consider  Him  that  endured  such  contradic- 


250    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 

Hon  of  sinners  against  Himself!     We  have  not 
yet  resisted  unto  blood  striving  against  sin. 

So  it  is,  brethren.  Whether  it  be  the  joy  of  the 
world  and  its  praise,  or  weariness  and  opposition, 
which  stifle  conscience  and  tamper  with  the  will : 
it  is  but  a  look  at  our  Lord,  and  He  restoreth  our 
soul ;  gives  us  no  magic  or  arbitrary  grace,  but  the 
natural  infection  of  His  own  heroism,  the  natural 
sympathy  of  His  own  sufferings,  and  the  most 
moral  of  all  gifts,  a  quick  conscience  and  a  tender 
heart. 

in 

But  the  restoration  of  the  soul  which  Christ 
begins  in  us  by  forgiveness,  and  the  faith 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God ;  and  which  He 
makes  so  keen  and  quick  by  the  example  of  His 
obedience  and  service — this  restoration,  He  tells 
us,  is  perfected  only  through  self -sacrifice.  That 
is  a  discipline  which  has  always  been  ready  to 
suggest  itself.  Most  moral  systems  inculcate  it ; 
and  there  never  was  a  man  in  whose  heart,  however 
obscure  or  ignorant,  the  thought  of  it  did  not  arise 
as  a  resource  in  danger  or  as  compensation  for  sin. 
It  has  been  preached  by  religion  as  penance ;   and 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    251 

many  a  man  feeling  the  world  to  be  intrinsically 
bad,  or  his  own  body  very  evil,  has  forsaken  the 
one  or  mutilated  the  other.  But  to  Jesus  self- 
sacrifice  was  never  a  penalty  or  a  narrower  life. 
It  was  a  glory  and  a  greater  life.  He  called  men 
to  it  not  of  fear,  nor  for  the  purpose  of  appeasing 
the  deity,  or  of  having  their  sins  forgiven ;  but  in 
fieedom  and  for  love's  sake.  He  urged  it  not  that 
men  might  save  a  miserable  remnant  of  life  by 
resigning  the  rest,  but  that  through  self-denial 
they  might  enter  a  larger  conception  of  life,  and  a 
deeper  enjoyment  of  their  possibilities  as  sons  of 
God.  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  ity  hut  he 
that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it. 

If  any  man  will  come  after  me^  let  him  deny 
himself  and  take  up  his  cross  and  come  after  .me. 
What  does  Christ  mean  by  the  cross  which  every 
disciple  must  bear.?  Some  have  no  choice  in  the 
matter.  Physical  circumstances,  or  the  conduct 
of  their  friends,  has  made  it  impossible  for  them 
to  do  anything  but  resign  the  gratification  of 
natural  instincts  and  hopes  which  other  men  may 
innocently  enjoy,  and  with  the  appetite  for  which 
they  themselves  have  been  born.  God  has  laid 
upon  them  iU-health  or  disease.     The  carelessness, 


252    SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION 

the  cruelty,  or  the  vice  of  those  dear  to  them  has 
torn  their  heart,  or  shackled  their  powers,  or  cut 
down  their  opportunities.  Others  have  a  burden  of 
work  greater  than  they  are  able  to  bear,  and  very 
distasteful:  it  means  the  loss  of  some  innocent 
happiness,  the  denial  of  appetites  which  it  seemed 
their  life  to  satisfy.  But  none  of  these  can  be  a 
man's  cross  till  he  himself  take  it  up  in  the  faith 
that  it  is  from  God's  hands,  in  submission  to  the 
Father's  will — and  it  may  be — in  love  for  some 
fellow-man,  for  whose  betterment  it  is  to  be  borne. 
The  sacrifices  of  God  are  not  our  sufferings  in 
themselves :  the  sacrifices  of  God  are,  as  the 
Psalm  says,  our  contrite  hearts  and  submissive 
wills :  our  resolute  purpose  to  love  and  help  even 
those  who  may  deserve  nothing  from  us. 

Others  again  have  their  cross  to  seek.  There 
may  be  such  here.  It  is  easy  for  some,  as  the 
children  of  many  Christian  generations,  to  keep 
the  commandments :  and  in  their  pure  environ- 
ments they  feel  no  need  of  struggle  to  do  good. 
Friends,  Christ  met  one  of  your  kind  in  the  rich 
young  ruler,  and  he  asked  of  him  therefore  all  the 
greater  sacrifice.  That  ease  of  virtue,  and  shelter 
from  temptation  may  be  only  the  preparation  for 


SERMON    BEFORE    COMMUNION    253 

a  supreme  duty  of  self-denial.  Watch  for  it,  ask 
for  it.      What  must  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life  ? 

Others  may  have  found  the  outward  circum- 
stance and  fortune  of  life  so  kind,  that  they  have 
never  known  the  need  of  self-denial  in  anything. 
But  such  an  estate  is  full  of  peril.  To  know  no 
self-denial  in  life  is  to  be  out  of  touch  with  reality. 
It  is  to  be  without  the  only  test  whereby  we  may 
prove  whether  our  virtue  and  our  faith  are  not  a 
dream.  We  must  obstinately  question  ourselves, 
and  resolutely  cultivate  opportunities  of  a  larger 
knowledge  of  the  unhappy  world  around  us. 

But  above  all  we  must  come  into  contact  with 
Christ.  We  must  haunt  His  Cross.  We  must 
infect  ourselves,  as  we  can  to-day  while  using 
these  symbols  of  His  Sacrifice,  with  His  Passion 
and  His  Love  for  men. 


XV 

SERMON  BEFORE  COMMUNION.    II 

He  took  bread. — Luke  xii.  19. 

T      WISH    to    speak    of    the    bearing    of    this 
•■•       Sacrament  upon  our  common  life. 

There  are  many  persons,  who,  whether  from 
their  infrequent  communions  or  from  some  ancient 
superstition  that  still  lingers,  have  formed  the  habit 
of  lifting  the  Lord's  Supper  out  of  connection 
with  their  everyday  life.  It  is  right  that  we  should 
regard  the  memorial  of  facts  so  divine  with  more 
than  usual  seriousness  of  feeling,  and  that  we 
should  prepare  for  it  with  a  very  earnest  discipline. 
But  how  many,  who  do  this  with  all  honesty  as  the 
feast  comes  round,  fail  to  carry  away  from  it  any 
influence  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  .^  Are  we  not 
all  tempted  to  treat  the  Sacrament  as  a  special  and 
occasional  means  of  grace,  which  demands  from 


BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II       255 

us  at  the  time  unusual  adoration  and  effort  to 
purify  our  hearts,  but  which  has  no  practical  effect 
upon  the  intervals  of  life  between  its  celebrations. 

Very  different  was  the  intention  of  Christ 
Himself  in  instituting  this  sacrament.  It  is  true 
that  what  He  embodied  in  it  were  the  highest  and 
most  awfiil  mysteries  of  His  Gospel — His  wonder- 
ful Incarnation  and  His  mysterious  Atonement  on 
the  Cross.  When  we  remember  that  it  is  to  nothing 
less  than  these  we  draw  near  in  this  Sacrament — 
these  which  were  prepared  from  all  eternity,  and 
accomplished  by  God  Himself  for  our  salvation — it 
behoves  us  to  approach  with  very  deep  feelings  of 
worship,  and  with  a  strenuous  putting  away  of  sin 
from  our  hearts.  We  remember  to-day  the  Word 
of  God  made  flesh.  We  behold  the  Lamb  of  God 
that  beareth  the  sin  of  the  world.  But  while  it  is 
these  unique  and  awful  events  which  Christ  brings 
us  to  celebrate  in  the  Sacrament,  He  brings  them 
near  to  us,  not  in  signs  of  the  glory  and  the  terror 
in  which  they  were  enacted,  but  in  signs  which 
express  their  common  and  daily  usefulness  to  our 
lives.  He  took  bread,  and  He  took  wine.  That 
is  to  say,  He  chose  two  materials  of  daily  use  to  be 
the  symbols  of  the  central  facts  of  our  salvation — 


256       BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II 

two  materials  which  man  employs  for  his  common 
and  regular  nourishment.  Could  He  have  made 
it  more  plain  that  He  intended  the  Sacrament  to  be 
not  only  the  memorial  of  His  Incarnation  and 
Atonement,  which  we  should  adore  in  penitence 
and  in  faith,  but  to  be  the  means  of  applying  both 
of  these  saving  facts  in  the  constant  and  ordinary 
nourishment  of  our  souls?  He  shows  that  these 
unique  events.  His  life  and  death,  are  to  take 
their  full  effect  just  in  the  way  our  daily  bread  and 
wine  take  effect,  as  the  sustenance  and  strength  of 
our  working  lives.  If  anything  were  wanting  in 
the  Sacrament  itself  to  make  clear  that  His  purpose 
was  of  this  practical  kind,  it  was  surely  supplied 
by  His  action  after  supper,  when  He  took  a  towel 
and  girt  Himself,  and  washed  His  disciples'  feet. 
When  you  are  tempted,  as  we  are  all  tempted,  to 
let  the  meaning  of  the  Sacrament  exhaust  itself  in 
the  clear  Gospel  it  proclaims  at  intervals,  or  in 
the  solemn  feelings  which  it  stirs,  recall  these 
plain  actions  of  Christ — He  took  bread,  He  took 
the  cupy  He  took  a  towel,  Christ,  before  all, 
would  be  practical;  would  bring  these  awful 
mysteries  into  the  most  intimate  and  useful 
connection  with  our  lives.     It  is  not  merely  the 


BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II       257 

devotion  of  your  heart,  roused  to  an  unusual 
degree  by  more  than  usually  sacred  associations ; 
it  is  not  the  temporary  increase  of  your  faith  and 
love,  which  He  wants  to-day.  He  wants  your 
common  life,  in  its  sin,  its  hunger  and  its  duties, 
that  He  may  show  you  how  His  grace  is  its  daily 
food,  and  how  His  example  is  its  highest  standard. 

/  am  the  bread  of  life^  He  says  as  He  hands 
us  this  bread.  The  bread  of  life  does  not  mean 
what  will  stimulate  us  to  a  more  than  ordinary 
strength  of  devotion  to  Him — a  strength  which 
is  only  to  diminish  again  towards  another  com- 
munion. The  bread  of  life  is  the  bread  we  arc  to 
live  by  to-morrow  and  the  next  day  and  all  the 
next;  the  bread  in  the  strength  of  which  we  are 
to  get  through  our  business,  resist  temptation, 
grow  strong  in  character,  rich  in  enthusiasm,  stead- 
fast in  will. 

How  many  of  us  have  no  idea  what  Christ 
means  by  being  the  Bread  of  Life,  simply  because 
we  have  not  first  of  all  asked  oiu-selves  what  we 
wish  life  itself  to  be !  If  life  be  for  us,  what  it  is 
for  so  many,  something  out  of  which  is  shut  not 
only  what  is  God-like,  but  even  the  higher  human 
affections — in  which  aspirations  after  truth  and 


258        BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II 

purity  are  regarded  as  impossible,  and  aspirations 
after  unselfishness  as  misleading — in  which  we 
take  no  more  interest  in  our  fellows  than  our 
curiosity  or  our  avarice  excites — in  which  we 
cannot  know  God  as  our  Father,  because  we  fear 
Him  only  as  the  incalculable  force  that  may  dis- 
appoint our  selfish  hopes — in  which  we  cannot 
know  our  fellow-men  as  brethren,  because  we  only 
recognise  them  as  our  rivals  for  the  good  things 
and  the  snug  places  of  the  world, — then  we  have 
no  need  of  Christ,  and  His  offer  of  Himself  as 
the  Bread  of  our  lives  will  fall  meaningless  on  our 
ears.  But  if  life  for  us  be  otherwise :  if  we  choose 
to  see  life  in  its  largest  meanings,  and  lay  upon  our 
hearts  its  real  responsibilities ;  if  life  be  to  us  the 
power  to  grow  away  from  sin,  to  stand  through 
temptation  and  to  wear  down  adversity;  if  it  be 
the  recovery  of  failure,  and  the  healing  of  wounds, 
and  the  courage  against  death ;  if  still  higher,  we 
have  known  that  we  come  from  the  Father,  who 
has  made  His  image  our  ideal,  and  our  destiny  the 
perfect  performance  of  His  will;  if  we  feel  how 
far  we  are  from  that  image,  and  how  terribly 
difficult  that  will  is  to  do, — I  say,  if  life  be  such 
a  liberty,  and  such  a  hope,  and  such  an  agony. 


BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II       259 

then  Christ  alone  is  the  strength  of  our  life.  He 
will  not  fail  us  in  any  of  its  wants  and  struggles ; 
but  he  that  cometh  to  Him  shall  never  hunger, 
and  he  that  believeth  in  Him  shall  never 
thirst. 

Bring  then  your  common  life,  and  let  its 
atmosphere  be  about  us  to-day.  Do  not  let  any 
artificial  sanctity  possess  us.  Do  not  let  us  try  to 
be  something  to-day  that  we  know  we  will  not  be 
to-morrow.  Let  us  not  affect  what  we  cannot  keep 
up  after  we  cross  this  threshold  and  get  among  our 
temptations  again.  There  is  nothing  that  Satan 
uses  so  fatally  to  wrap  up  a  man's  conscience  in  as 
communion  affectations.  Let  the  men  and  women 
who  lift  their  hearts  here  to-day  be  the  men  and 
women  of  to-morrow,  as  they  face  their  work,  their 
daily  ideals,  their  daily  temptations — as  they  deal 
with  their  employers  and  servants — as  they  feel  the 
duty  and  the  strain  of  life.  It  is  not  people  with 
the  few  conventional  religious  aspirations  for  whom 
this  sacrament  is  meant ;  it  is  men  and  women 
with  the  strain,  the  hunger  and  the  pity  of  their 
common  life  upon   them. 

Now,  that  we  may  get  our  common  life  about 
us,  let  us  recall  three  of  its  main  wants — its  want 

R  t 


26o       BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II 

of  struggle  against  sin,  its  want  of  love,  its  want 
of  consecration — and  see  how  this  Sacrament  meets 
these. 

I 

This  Sacrament  tells  us  first  and  foremost  of  a 
struggle  against  sin.  We  are  asked  indeed  to  enjoy 
the  results  of  that  struggle — the  forgiveness  and 
the  grace  that  it  won  for  us;  bread  of  strength, 
and  wine  of  pardon.  But  we  are  not  allowed  to 
forget  how  our  sin  was  removed — ^what  it  cost  our 
Lord  in  battle  and  in  death.  The  bread  is 
broken,  the  wine  poured  forth,  in  memory 
that  our  sin  brought  Him  to  the  Cross — 
that  He  gave  Himself  to  crucifixion  for 
our  guilt.  The  sight  of  this — that  sin  was 
met  and  overcome  by  sufferings  and  a  contest 
so  terrible — is  enough  of  itself  to  beget  in  us  a 
hatred  for  even  the  sweetest  of  our  evil  habits. 
But  there  is  more  than  that  here.  There  is  more 
than  the  vision  of  how  awful  a  conflict  was  endured 
for  us  by  One  who  had  no  other  need  to  enter  it 
than  the  great  love  He  bare  us.  There  is  the  call 
to  enter  upon  struggle  ourselves.  There  is  the 
reminder  that  sin  can  be  destroyed  only  by  strenu- 


BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II       261 

ous  means.  There  is  the  warning  that  our  daily 
commonplace  sins  need  to  be  dealt  with  in  the 
same  earnestness  and  agony.  There  is  the 
reminder  which  Paul  states  in  just  so  many  words, 
that  as  Christ  was  crucified  for  us,  so  we  have  to 
be  crucified  with  Him — so  we  have  to  crucify  our 
sinful  nature,  breaking  free  from  all  that  is  strongest 
upon  us,  killing  all  that  is  most  dear  to  us,  so  be  it 
is  against  the  holy  will  of  God. 

Now,  have  we  done  this.?  When  we  are 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  Cross — ^with  its 
rigours,  its  pains,  and  its  death — do  we  not  feel 
utterly  ashamed  of  the  easy  conscience  we  hold 
towards  our  sins,  and  the  half-measures  we  have 
used  to  get  rid  of  them?  How  reproachfully  do 
these  elements  address  our  common  life :  Ye  have 
not  resisted  unto  bloody  striving  against  sin!  Is 
it  not  so  ?  You  know  how,  even  when  we  begin  to 
feel  uneasy  about  any  sin,  we  shrink  from  facing 
its  full  results  and  our  full  duty  with  regard  to  it. 
You  know  how  often  when  we  repent  of  a  sin,  our 
repentance  is  all  gone  before  its  next  attack,  and 
we  meet  it  with  a  light  heart  in  which  no  sense  of 
hostility  to  it  is  stirring.  You  know  how  apt  we 
are  to  feel  about  our  sins,  that  they  will  die  of  old 


262       BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II 

age.  You  know,  young  men,  how  you  think  this 
of  certain  sins,  that  they  will  leave  you  as  respect- 
able and  staid  as  your  middle-aged  fathers.  You 
know,  men  of  middle  age,  how  you  think  of 
certain  bad  tempers  and  compromises  with  the  ways 
of  the  world,  that  they  are  only  due  to  the  strife 
of  business,  and  that  they  will  disappear  when 
business  is  over  and  God  grants  you  a  few  years 
of  retirement  to  prepare  for  heaven.  But  no  sin 
dies  of  old  age,  and  "  no  sin  dies  of  half-measures." 
The  Cross,  in  these  memorials  of  what  happened 
upon  it,  reminds  us  that  what  sin  needs  is  killing — 
crucifixion.  Sin  may  not  die  at  once  ;  it  may  keep 
you  fighting  to  kill  it  for  a  lifetime ;  but  it  is  only 
when  your  heart  is  wholly  committed  against  it,  is 
wholly  bent  upon  its  destruction,  that  increasing 
victory  will  be  granted  you,  and  you  will  be  spared 
the  awful  shame  of  passing  from  life  without 
having    overcome. 

Do  not  then,  I  beseech  you,  take  away  only  the 
pardon  that  this  Sacrament  offers  and  seals  to  you ; 
take  also  the  new  conscience — the  knowledge  that 
this  is  the  only  way  sin  can  be  dealt  with,  and  the 
resolution  so  to  deal  with  it.  Do  not  do  what  so 
many  do  so  often — bewail  at  Communion  only  your 


BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II       263 

coldness  of  feeling  and  meagreness  of  faith. 
Mention  your  besetting  sins — any  unkind  temper 
you  have,  any  shady  way  of  doing  business,  any 
unholy  desires ;  and,  by  the  Passion  and  the  Cross 
of  Him  who  died  that  sin  might  be  destroyed, 
resolve  to  fight  them  to  the  bitter  end. 

II 

I  think,  if  we  bring  our  common  life  up  to 
this  Sacrament,  we  shall  feel  our  want  of  love. 
God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us^  in  that^ 
while  we  were  yet  sinners^  Christ  died  for  us. 
Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man 
lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends.  That  grace,  that 
self-sacrifice,  that  heroism — may  God's  Spirit 
loosen  our  wonder  and  our  affection  upon  them 
to-day !  May  we  really  be  stirred  by  the  thought 
of  our  Father's  mercy ;  of  our  elder  Brother's 
perfect  love  to  us !  May  we  take  new  heart  in  our 
despondency  and  our  poor  struggles  after  scancti- 
fication !  He  who  hath  so  loved  us  will  not  leave 
us  alone,  but  will  love  us  to  the  end  past  sorrow, 
past  sin  and  past  death. 

Let  us  feel  all  this  to  the  uttermost ;  but  in  any 
rapture  it  inspires  do  not  let  us  fail  to  compare  with 


264       BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II 

it  our  own  temper  and  conduct.  There  is  here  not 
only  grace  for  us ;  there  is  example — example  and 
a  divine  infection.  And  the  grace  cannot  be  truly 
won  unless  the  example  and  the  infection  of  it  are 
also  felt. 

For  we  must  not  think  that  this  love  is 
beyond  our  imitation ;  that  there  is  here 
an  instance  of  heroism  and  self-sacrifice 
which  only  a  very  few,  and  these  at  a 
great  distance,  are  called  to  repeat  in  their  own 
lives.  In  most  lives,  it  is  true,  the  opportunities 
to  heroic  sacrifice  are  very  rare.  "  But  there  is  a 
harder,  a  braver,  a  better  thing  than  heroic  action 
— namely,  the  power  of  the  Cross  in  little,  common 
things."  The  most  sublime  fact  which  could 
happen  to-day — the  fact  which  would  more  change 
and  illuminate  the  world  than  anything  else — 
would  be  the  lighting  up  of  millions  of  average 
Christian  lives  with  the  spirit  of  the  Cross.  It  is 
not  the  emergence  of  a  man  here  and  there  from 
the  crowd  into  a  brilliant  heroism  that  the  world 
needs.  It  is  the  shedding  abroad  of  tenderness, 
pity,  and  the  cheer  and  sympathy  which  come  from 
self-forgetfulness.  It  is  the  shedding  abroad  of 
the   dew   and    lustre   of   all   that    upon   all    the 


BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II        265 

unattractive  characters  of  respectable  religious 
people.  Therefore  to-day  let  us  not  ask  from  God 
or  seek  from  the  Cross  an  enthusiasm  for  something 
great  when  it  ought  to  be  the  harshness  or  the 
meanness  of  our  daily  tempers  which  we  seek  His 
love  to  drive  forth  from  us.  Ask  from  Christ 
the  spirit  of  the  Cross  for  our  daily  life — habitual 
patience,  self-restraint,  self-forgetfulness,  charity, 
and  tenderness  for  others. 

Ill 

The  third  want  of  our  life  is  the  want  of 
consecration.  If  we  have  sensitive  consciences 
to-day,  two  things  must  be  troubling  us.  Firsts 
our  little  influence  for  good  in  the  world ;  and, 
secondly y  the  number  of  vulgar  and  base  tempta- 
tions which  assail  us  from  day  to  day — not  great, 
clean  temptations,  in  which,  as  in  Christ's,  we  feel 
God's  Spirit  testing  us  for  discipline,  but  the 
occupation  of  our  minds  by  sordid  things,  the 
irritation  of  our  hearts  by  trifling  worries,  the 
suggestion  of  things  base — ^all  the  kind  of  things 
we  feel  we  ought  to  be  above  if  we  are  God's 
true  children. 

Both  of  these  experiences  betray  the  same  want 


266       BEFORE    COMMUNION.     II 

— the  want  of  consecration.  We  have  not  shown 
any  difference  from  the  world,  we  have  not  got  on 
with  our  work,  we  have  not  been  free  from  the 
baser  temptations,  just  in  proportion  as  our 
consecration  has  been  partial  and  insincere.  Here 
we  receive  a  new  opportunity.  In  the  presence  of 
our  Master's  perfect  sacrifice,  by  the  symbols  of  His 
passion  and  His  death,  we  are  called  to  give  our- 
selves once  more  to  God.  May  the  faithfulness, 
the  utterness  of  Christ's  devotion  come  down  on 
us!  May  His  love  consume  in  us  all  that  is 
dishonourable,  break  the  bands  that  bind  us  to 
sin,  engage  every  one  of  our  faculties  and  affec- 
tions, and  bring  us  with  every  talent  we  possess 
and  every  opportunity  to  the  service  of  God  and 
His  kingdom !  There  could  be  no  greater  miracle 
in  any  town  than  that  which  would  follow  from  the 
full  devotion  of  a  whole  congregation  to  Christ 
around  His  Table.  May  every  one  of  us 
be  moved  to-day  by  these  mercies  of  God — so 
apparent,  so  urgent — to  present  our  bodies  a  living 
sacrifice,  holy  and  acceptable  unto  God,  which  is 
our  reasonable  service. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


